


My Own Worst Enemy

by ElektricAngel



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Soul Bond, headcanons to the left of them, headcanons to the right of them, in the way that all of Volume 4 was a road trip, road trip fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2019-10-07 22:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 62,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17374679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElektricAngel/pseuds/ElektricAngel
Summary: After he and Neo barely escape the Battle of Beacon with their lives, Roman is perfectly content never to see Literal Flaming Bitch or Red and her merry band of Huntresses ever again. But the new voice in his head has other ideas. And unless Roman suddenly grew a (suspiciously professorial-sounding) conscience, he’s got a serious problem of his own.





	1. And into the fire

**Author's Note:**

> Basically takes the idea “what if Roman survived and became Ozpin’s new soul roommate (soulmate)?” and runs with it. This is a crack concept taken seriously. For the most part :)
> 
> I made a playlist for this fic here: https://8tracks.com/elektricangel/my-own-worst-enemy

 

 

It would have been hard to call it a leap of faith, since Roman Torchwick had never had much faith to begin with. In himself he had some, enough to keep getting into trouble, and whatever was left he placed in her. Neo. His little sister. The only person he trusted in this fucked up world, and the only person crazy enough to trust him. And he’d just watched her get swept off the edge of the airship at ten thousand feet like a leaf in a gale. Courtesy of one infuriatingly persistent little Huntress-in-training.

The urge to beat Red to a bloody pulp and then blow her pretty little brains out rose up like bile in his throat. But a stronger urge—one that had driven him ever since he’d first held his baby sister in his arms and thought, _too_ _small_ —took over. Red advanced, and he backed off, toward the edge. He risked a glance over his shoulder. He could still see her soaring through the air, but she was little more than a speck in the distance now. _Too_ _small_. He took one last shot at Red, a distraction more than anything, then turned his back on her, clamped a hand down over his hat, and took a flying leap over the side of the ship. 

The sky was swarming with Grimm. All he needed to do was stick the landing. And not get himself killed before he even reached the ground. The gryphon he was angling for looked a likely candidate to do just that if he messed this up. But more than his own life was riding on him pulling this off—Neo’s was, too.

He didn’t mess up. He landed securely on the gryphon’s back, and before it knew what had hit it, he’d arced his cane over its head and yanked it back to lodge in the creature’s beak like a bit in a horse’s mouth. When it screeched and tried to roll him off, he yanked his cane in the other direction, and thankfully, the beast wasn’t stupid enough to break its own neck trying to dislodge him.

“That’s it, easy does it,” he crooned. The gryphon screeched again, setting his ears ringing, but it didn’t attempt to throw him off a second time. He looked back up at the airship just once, and he wished he could’ve savored the gobsmacked look on Red’s face, her mouth forming the words ‘ _What_ _the_ —?’

Roman returned his attention to more important matters. Like figuring out how to fly this thing. Experimentally, he pushed down on his cane, and the creature dipped down through the air. When he yanked up, it beat its dark, powerful wings and climbed. It responded to him tilting the cane left and right just as nicely. “Alright!” He laughed triumphantly. He’d grown so accustomed to Red throwing a wrench into his plans, he’d almost forgotten what it felt like when one went off without a hitch. “Now, fetch.”

He sent the gryphon diving toward the little white speck in the distance. The creature was fast—it wasn’t long before he could see Neo clearly. She was clutching her umbrella like a lifeline. He rarely saw her look scared anymore, and even now, she looked determined, too, scanning the sky and the ground for anything that could help her. Her eyes widened when she saw him approaching. He grinned back at her. “Hop on!” he called. The gryphon screeched and tried to take a snap at her, but Roman shoved down hard on his cane, and the creature dove beneath her instead. “No! Bad birdy!” he hissed.

Neo retracted her umbrella when the beast passed beneath her, and landed behind Roman with a quiet _huff_ of breath. She wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, holding on for dear life as they soared through the air. But once she realized that Roman actually had some inkling as to what the hell he was doing, she dropped her chin on his shoulder and squeezed a little tighter, just for a moment. 

“I’ve got you,” he said, finally releasing a sigh of relief. “You can’t ditch me that easily.” He felt her shake with silent laughter. “Now, how to land this bird...” The laughter ceased. “Relax, I’ve got this.” He pushed steadily down and to the left, causing the gryphon to fly lower in a gradual downward spiral. They needed to get away from the city, away from the battle. There was nothing left for them back there.

He brought the gryphon down – a little roughly – in an abandoned farmyard a few miles outside the city limits. Before the creature could try anything cute, he vaulted over its head, shoved the end of his cane down its throat and fired off five rounds in quick succession. It fell down dead at his feet, tendrils of smoke curling from its open beak.

Neo leapt down from its back and applauded in delight. Roman gave a showy bow. “See? Your big brother’s not totally crazy.”

Neo raised an eyebrow, expressing more with one look than most people manage in a dozen words.

Roman crossed his arms. “Well, my crazy just saved your life.”

She gave a noncommittal shrug. _Maybe_.

“Yeesh, what’s a guy gotta do to get a little appreciation these days? Didn’t I ever teach you to respect your elders? I oughta—“ She interrupted him mid-rant by skipping over and leaning up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. Her smile derailed the rest of his diatribe completely.

He sighed dramatically. “You only get away with this shit ‘cause you’re cute.” She tapped her fingers on the handle of her umbrella pointedly. “Cute and _deadly_ ,” Roman amended. She smiled again.

Roman began walking toward the abandoned barn. “Come on, we can camp out in there for the night, then get the hell out of here in the morning.”

Neo looked questioningly back in the direction of Beacon.

“We did our jobs,” said Roman. “Hopefully Cinder remembers that if she succeeds in bringing about her new world order. But we’re not sticking around to find out.”

Neo nodded firmly, and followed him inside without another backward glance.

~ * ~

Roman woke gasping in the middle of the night. He’d been burning alive, Cinder’s flaming eyes the last thing he’d seen before the flames engulfed him, charring flesh and bone. He patted himself down, just to make sure all of him was still there. The nightmare had felt so real...

Was he really so anxious of some kind of retribution from her? She’d paid him to help her bring down Beacon, and he’d done that. She wouldn’t come after him for no reason. She was a busy gal, with “conquer the world” at the top of her to-do list. As long as he stayed out of her way, she shouldn’t care one way or the other whether he lived or died. It wasn’t as if he, Roman Torchwick, was about to go running his mouth to the authorities. He liked to flatter himself that he’d been her right-hand man, instrumental to her plans,but if he were being honest with himself, she probably wouldn’t even notice he was gone.

Well, the disenchantment was mutual. Sure, she’d been fun at first—a real firecracker! But toward the end, she’d just scared the shit out of him. He knew when to make his getaway. He’d almost feel sorry for those other two little punks if they didn’t know to do the same.

He lay back down with his hands behind his head and looked over at Neo, still sleeping peacefully in her corner of the hayloft. He wasn’t going to waste his concern on anyone else. He had to protect him and his. No one else would.

He closed his eyes and wished the lingering anxiety would go away so he could get back to sleep. All he wanted now was a good night’s rest, to see Neo’s smiling face in the morning, and to get the hell outta dodge. And a big mug of steaming hot coca.

...Wait, what? Neo was the one who liked the sweet stuff. He drank black coffee and whiskey like any self-respecting gangster. So why the hell was he suddenly craving hot chocolate?

 _'Well, this is less than ideal,'_ said a voice from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Roman bolted upright again and grabbed his cane, looking down the barrel into the darkness in front of him. Nothing stirred as he scanned shadows. The barn was empty save for him and Neo. He glanced over at her curled up form, still asleep. She was a light sleeper. So how had she not heard that voice?

Roman grit his teeth and lowered his cane. “You might be right, kid,” he muttered under his breath. “Maybe I am fuckin’ crazy.”

_'Oh, I sincerely hope not.'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roman: Nope. Fuck this shit. I’ve had a stressful enough day already. I had to use a Grimm as a getaway vehicle!
> 
> Ozpin: But did you die?


	2. Partners in, well, not crime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I let Torchwick say ‘fuck’.

“Who are you?” Roman hissed. “And how the hell are you talking to me?”

_'That’s a bit of a long story. And I’m afraid it’s going to upset you. But I can assure you, I find all this equally distressing.'_

There was a rustling in the hay, and Roman looked over to see Neo sitting up and blinking sleepily at him. “Did you hear...something, just now?” he asked her.

She looked confused, and gestured to him. She’d heard him talking. To himself. Great. “I’m just feeling restless,” he told her. “I’m gonna go outside and smoke. Go back to sleep.”

She yawned and fell back into the hay, out again like a light. Roman rose, grabbed his hat and cane, slid down the hayloft ladder and walked outside. The night had grown quiet. The battle had been decided, one way or the other. He almost didn’t care which. 

He leaned up against the side of the barn and lit up a cigar, taking a long drag. It did wonders to calm his nerves. 

_'Smoking’s a nasty habit.'_

“I’m a nasty person. So...” he began, in a leading tone, “what the fuck?”

_'Indeed. Well. My name is Ozpin.'_

Roman coughed up a lungful of smoke. “What the _fuck_?” he reiterated, for emphasis. 

_'Yes, I expected you might react this way. But please believe me when I tell you that I mean you no harm. Not anymore. I’m actually hoping we can come to an understanding. Even, dare I say, work together.'_

“Yeah, right. Just how dumb do you think I am?” There was a conspicuous beat of silence. “Okay, well, fuck you, too. And fuck off. I’m not interested.”

_'I’m afraid I can’t do that. Please, just...allow me to explain. But before I do, I need to know one thing: Are you still working for Cinder?'_

Roman laughed. “Is this some kind of desperate intelligence-gathering tactic? You’re just going to _ask_ me? It’s none of your damn business.”

_'Your business_ is _my business now. If you’d just answer the question—'_

“My business is crime, teach.” 

_‘Yes, I am well aware. That’s not what I meant—'_

“Listen, if you’re trying to get me to turn on Cinder, don’t waste your breath. Our arrangement’s concluded as of tonight. And nothing’s gonna persuade me to poke that bear.”

_'Well, that’s something, at least.'_

“How are you still alive, anyway? She was gunning for you.” 

Roman imagined he could feel Ozpin’s annoyance. Whatever Beacon’s headmaster was doing to communicate with him like this, it was starting to seriously unnerve him. He took another deep drag from his cigar. 

_'It’s complicated.'_

“Now who’s the one evading questions? Well, I don’t really care. So if there’s nothing else, I’ve had a stressful day—“

'You’ve _had—?'_ Okay, Roman definitely wasn’t imagining it. Ozpin was _pissed_. ‘ _If you’ll just listen to what I have to say—'_

“I’m not one of your starry-eyed little students, Professor. I don’t have to listen to you.” 

_'And just how would you propose to silence me?'_

Roman thought about it for a moment. “Lotta booze.” 

_'Gods, you sound just like—someone I know. It doesn’t matter. You need to listen to me.'_

“Oh yeah? Make me.” Roman dropped his cigar and stubbed it out with his cane, then turned to go back inside. Or tried to. His legs had suddenly stopped working. 

“I was hoping you’d say that.” The words came out of Roman’s mouth without his permission. It was his voice, but the diction was all wrong. He didn’t talk like that. His posture had changed, too—he was standing straighter, his shoulders squared and chin raised. He had no control over any of it. He stepped forward and spun his cane from hand to hand a few times, as if testing the weight and balance for the first time. “Not bad. You’re in fighting shape. And we share the same weapon of choice. At least we won’t need to start from scratch.” 

Roman tried to speak, but the words never reached his lips. ' _What the hell have you done to me?'_

“Oh, _now_ you’d like me to explain? Do I have your attention?”

_'In fucking spades.'_

“Good. Then I suggest you make yourself comfortable. As I said, it’s a long story.” Abruptly, Roman had control of himself again, and he stumbled and collapsed against the side of the barn. He figured he might as well stay there until he had some clue as to what the hell was going on. 

_'This story begins centuries ago, in an era when history and legend begin to blur...'_ Ozpin began.

Roman banged his head against the wall behind him. “You have got to be kidding me.”

~ * ~

“Okay, let me get this straight,” said Roman, when Ozpin had finished regaling him with overelaborate bedtime stories. The man sure loved a captive audience. “You’re some ancient, powerful wizard—“

_'I never used the word "ancient".'_

“I’m using it. And you created the Maidens that Cinder’s so hot for, to help you protect humanity from your psycho ex. This would be Salem, my boss’ boss, who packs power that makes Cinder look like she’s playing with toy sparklers. And you need _my_ help because Cinder torched your ass and you reincarnated by attaching your soul to mine like some kind of parasite—because we’re _soulmates_ , or something?—and we’re now, somehow, the same person. How am I doing so far?”

_'I suppose that's the gist of it, more or less. Although I never specified what my relationship was to Salem.'_

“Yeah, that part I inferred from the fact that she’s been trying to murder you for centuries.”

‘ _...Fair enough. Although the fact that that was your first guess raises concerns for me about_ your _past relationships.’_

“Well, your concerns are probably justified, considering Cinder was one of them.”

_’Oh. Well, that’s...awkward.’_

“Obviously I knew she was just using me for my criminal empire, but, well, have you _seen_ Cinder?" 

_'Quite recently.'_

"Ha. Right. Well anyway, it was fun while it lasted, but man, if you think _I_ have power trips and an unhealthy attraction to danger—“

_‘That’s—all I need to know. Really.’_

“Then I just have one question.”

_'Yes?'_

“Are you high?”

Ozpin sighed _. ‘No.'_

“Am _I_ high?”

_'No. If you were, I would be as well.'_

Roman chuckled. “Really?”

_'Don’t get any ideas.'_

“Then you seriously expect me to start believing in fairytales about gods and magic? Heroes and villains? Nothing’s ever that simple.”

_'You’re right. It’s not really that simple. And you will start to remember it all yourself, in time. I know it sounds far-fetched now, but future generations will speak of_ these _times in fairytales. That is, if there are future generations to tell the stories.'_

“Yeah, and the whole saving the world gig? Not really my area. You seriously think I can take down Flaming Bitch and Grimdark Bitch—“

_'Do you mean Cinder and Salem?'_

“—That’s what I said—where you couldn’t?”

_'You will have me. And we will have allies, if all goes well.'_

Roman couldn’t help but laugh. This was all too surreal. Maybe he was still dreaming. “Your allies are my enemies, Professor.”

_'Yes. Unfortunately, that is one of many obstacles before us that we must overcome.'_

“It seems like this would all be a hell of a lot easier if you’d picked someone else. Why me? What’d I ever do to you?”

_'You attacked my students and my academy on multiple occasions. And unless I am mistaken, you were most conveniently placed to turn General Ironwood’s army against us tonight.'_

“You can’t prove that.”

_'No. And it doesn’t matter now, because you are all I’ve got. But to be honest, I don’t know why, of all people, my soul was drawn to yours. Every time I have died, my soul has always sought out a kindred soul of a like-minded individual. But it is an involuntary process that I still don’t fully understand, and perhaps, not an infallible one.'_

“So this is all just a big cosmic mistake?” Even Ozpin didn’t quite sound convinced of that. But Roman sure couldn’t think of anything a Huntsman academy headmaster would have in common with a criminal kingpin. Ozpin’s job was to rein in the chaos, while Roman far preferred to dish it out. 

_'Perhaps it is a fortuitous misfortune. I don’t feel half as guilty about saddling you with my burdens as I would an innocent.'_

“Gee, thanks. At least you know you’re no picnic, yourself. Awareness is the first step to change.”

_'You’re not taking this seriously, are you?'_

“Nope. You’ve got quite a story, but for all I know, your Semblance is telepathy or mind control, like Emerald’s. For all I know, you could _be_ Emerald, making up this whole elaborate illusion just to fuck with me. In which case, you’re fucking dead, you little thief.”

_'Is there_ anyone _you trust?'_

“There are exactly two people, and one of them is me.”

_'Then think of the bigger picture. Why would I, or Emerald, or anyone, go to such lengths for you? You were a minor player in all of this, and the City of Vale was the base of your criminal operations. Now that it’s fallen, you have nothing. You are no one. I doubt Cinder knows or cares whether you lived or died tonight. You’ve outlived your usefulness to everyone except me. But that’s only if you believe my story. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be wasting my time on you, either. I have far more important things to do.'_

Roman knew all of that. He’d lost nearly everything in the battle, but he’d been unable to do anything to stop it once the gears had been set in motion. The best path available to him had been the path of least resistance. Cinder was going to win whether he’d helped or hindered her. At least this way, he’d been able to escape with Neo, and that was the only thing that really mattered. He’d built himself up from nothing before, and he could do it again.

“Yeah, I’d figured all of that out for myself, thanks. That’s why I’m cutting my losses and getting the hell out of here. It’s time for a fresh start. I’m thinkin’ somewhere with nice beaches, good food, a fractured criminal underworld desperate for experienced leadership...”

_'You can’t run from this, Torchwick. Salem wants to change the world so profoundly, you won’t recognize it, if she is magnanimous enough to let you live to see it. And that is a big ‘if’.'_

He knew that, too. He knew the doomsday clock was ticking down and they were all living on borrowed time. But if he could steal more, he would. He would keep Neo safe for as long as possible, and together they would make the most of whatever time they had left. They could still have some fun before the end of the world. 

“Then I’m not gonna waste whatever precious time I’ve got left on some delusional hero scheme without a snowball’s chance in hell.”

_'You don’t believe the world can change for the better, do you?'_

“The world only ever changes for the worse. That’s a principle I’ve always relied on, and it’s never failed me. Hell, it’s the reason I got this far.”

_'I’ll admit I have seen things get worse more often than they get better. But even if you’re right, and things can only get worse from here, wouldn’t you rather go out with a bang?'_

“Oh, believe me, I intend to.”

_'What I mean is, you have the chance to do something of consequence. Something people will tell stories about.'_

“See, that’s the problem with people like you and Cinder. You think you can live forever. Well, maybe _you_ can. But I’m not looking to make my mark on the hereafter. All I care about is the here and now.”

_'So you have no regard for the future?'_

“I live in the moment. The only way to get to the future is to survive the present.”

Ozpin was silent for so long, Roman began to think that maybe it all _had_ been a hallucination. There was just him, the stars, and the smoke from the burning city. Roman wasn’t used to the quiet of the countryside. The still night air felt charged, like the world was holding its breath. 

_'I don’t want to do this_ ,' said Ozpin finally, startling Roman out of his thoughts. _'But you’ve left me with little choice.'_ Roman didn’t like the sound of that, but as soon as he tried to move, he felt that same fuzziness in his head, and his body wouldn’t respond. He tried to fight for control, but it was no contest. Ozpin had completely sidelined him. Slowly, he stood, and then began to walk back in the direction of Beacon. 

_'What the hell do you think you’re doing?'_ Roman demanded.

“I will not sit passively on the sidelines when the fate of humanity is at stake.” Well, _that_ was a bizarre sentence to hear come from his own mouth. “I need a willing partner. I have tried to convince you this is a necessary cause, but I cannot afford to wait for you to see things from my point of view. I’m not sure you ever will. So I might as well go back to Beacon and do my damnedest to take Cinder down with me this time. She won’t be expecting an attack from you, so I just might succeed.”

_'That’d be suicide, and you know it!'_

“Most likely. In which case, I will have another chance at reincarnation, which means another chance at finding someone who’s willing to make the necessary sacrifices for the greater good.”

_'Like you’re about to sacrifice my fucking life without so much as a fair fight?'_

“Yes. In the grander scheme of things, your life is expendable. You just can’t see it.”

_'Oh, I see it plenty clearly. You’ve got plans in motion, and anything—or anyone—that gets ground up in the gears is collateral damage. You use people. I know, ‘cause I do it, too. And this little get-Torchwick-killed-so-I-can-find-some-other-sucker-to-take-his-place scheme of yours? It’s exactly what I would do were I in your shoes. So maybe we’re not so different, after all. Maybe your soul just isn’t what it used to be.'_

His step faltered. And Ozpin was distracted enough for Roman to muster the focus necessary to twitch just one finger...

His gun went off with a _bang_ , and the blast from the explosive round threw him backward a dozen feet. Oh, he was going to be sore tomorrow, if he lived to see it. But as soon as he landed in the dirt, Roman fought tooth and nail to wrest control back from Ozpin, who was preoccupied with gasping for breath that had been knocked out of his lungs. Roman managed to scramble to his feet before Ozpin recovered from the shock, but then his legs locked up, and he nearly bit the dirt.

_'Fuck!'_

“This is ridiculous,” Ozpin wheezed. “My soul is much stronger than yours. Why are you fighting me?”

_'What do you mean,_ ‘why’? _It’s_ my _life on the line!'_

“Your tarnished life isn’t worth the countless innocent lives I can save if I have a partner who will fight wholeheartedly for what’s right, instead of fighting against me every step of the way!”

_'Oh, and you get to decide that, do you? Who do you think you are, some kind of god?'_

Roman felt his hands clench into fists. “You helped bring about these events. It is only just that you give your life to rectify them.”

_'Well, I ain’t givin’ it!'_

A hand fell on Roman’s shoulder, causing Ozpin to turn around with a start. There was Neo, looking up at him in concern and confusion. The blast must have woken her. 

_'No, no!'_ Roman tried to scream. _'Get out of here, Neo! Run!'_

But Ozpin just continued to stare down at her, and she continued to stare at him. After a moment, she leaned up on her toes and squinted into his eyes. The next moment, the point of her slender sword was bare centimeters from his throat. 

“You’re very perceptive,” Ozpin said. “But if you try to harm me, you will only harm him.”

Neo’s face twisted in conflict, but slowly, she lowered her sword. Ozpin turned and continued walking without another word. Roman remained silent. If Ozpin was willing to leave Neo alone, it was best if he got as far away from her as possible, before he changed his mind. 

He made it five steps before Neo fell into step beside him. Ozpin looked looked over at her in surprise, but she merely glared at him, set her shoulders, and kept walking. Of course she was going to stay by his side. She knew exactly where they were headed, and it didn’t matter. She would follow Roman to hell and back. Even if there was no coming back.

_'Tell her to stay behind. You can’t let her come with us.'_

“Why? If she’s with us, we’ll have better odds.”

_'You’re just gonna get her killed, too!'_

“It seems like she’s made her choice.”

_'It’s not up to her! Tell her I’m ordering her to stay! Tell her—I don’t know, that you’ll fucking devour my soul if she takes one more step! I don’t care, just... I’ll go without a fight if you can make her stay.'_

Ozpin stopped walking, and Neo did, too. She watched his every move warily as he turned to regard her more closely. “So there is someone you care about more than yourself. What is she to you? A girlfriend?”

Neo looked about ready to slap him across the face, if it wasn’t Roman’s face she’d be slapping. ' _She’s my sister, you asshole!'_

Ozpin straightened, and smiled in a way Roman wasn’t used to. “I see. You have hidden depths, Torchwick. Well hidden and very deep—“

_’Hey!'_

“—but they’re there. We might just be able to work together, after all. That is, if you’re willing to learn from me. Does that sound fair?”

Roman wasn’t about to try Ozpin’s patience any further. At least not while he was in the mood for murder-suicide. _'To quote you, Professor, you’ve left me with little choice.'_

“I’m glad you’ve been paying attention. We’ll start your lessons tomorrow.”

_'Lessons? Seriously?'_

“Seriously. So I suggest you rest up, but for now, I return control to you.”

Roman flexed his fingers experimentally. Then he grinned down at Neo, who, if possible, looked even more confused and frustrated than before. “Did ya miss me?” 

Neo’s shoulders slumped with relief, and she punched him gently in the ribs. That was a yes.

Roman figured introductions were in order. “So, you’ve met Ozpin.” She immediately tensed again at the name. “Yeah, that’s the one. He’s a real peach once you get to know him, though! Really, just the nicest guy!”

_'Alright, I’ll admit I may have been a tad...overzealous.'_

“Ozpin, this is Neo. She’s not as sweet as she looks.” 

Neo twirled her umbrella and somehow managed to make a curtsy look threatening. 

“Okay, go team, or whatever.” Roman yawned widely. “Man, I’m beat.” With that, he turned and began trudging back the way they’d come. Suddenly, that musty hayloft seemed absolutely heavenly. 

Neo trotted alongside him, and hooked his arm with the handle of her umbrella to get him to slow down. What she wanted was clear: an explanation. But where would he even begin? “I’ll tell you everything back at the barn. It’s a long story.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ozpin: Hi, I’m here to ruin everything.
> 
> Roman: Isn’t that my line?
> 
> Neo: *facepalm*


	3. Trust

Roman did not get the restful sleep he so desperately craved. His dreams were plagued by visions of apocalyptic hellscapes, vast wars that swept across continents, and swarms of Grimm blotting out the land and sky. Oh, and a few more nightmares of being burned alive, just for variety. 

After snatching a few hours’ sleep in fits and starts, he woke once more when the light of dawn began to filter in through the rafters, and he just knew he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. Roman threw his arm over his eyes and groaned. “This is your fault.”

_‘I’m sorry. These transitions always put me under a great deal of stress—this one in particular. I’ll get a handle on it.’_

“You’d better,” Roman grumbled, too tired to sound properly threatening. 

_‘It would have been easier, had_ your _dream about Cinder not triggered traumatic memories of my most recent death,’_ Ozpin responded bitterly. 

“I wish I remembered _that_ one. Was it hot or scary?”

_‘I…honestly couldn’t say.’_

“Hah. That sounds about right.” 

Neo rolled over and pawed at Roman’s face until she found his mouth, and pressed her hand over it. 

“How d’you know you’re not shushing Ozpin?” he mumbled beneath her hand. 

She cracked her eyes open and glared at him. _I don’t care._

Really, she was taking this whole thing surprisingly well. Of course, she was as pissed at Ozpin as he was, but she couldn’t exactly take it out on anyone but Roman, and as far as he was concerned, he’d done nothing to deserve his present affliction. So Neo had opted to bottle up her resentment for future outlets, instead. It was a little trick she’d learned from her brother. 

Roman plucked her hand from his face and placed it back by her side with a little pat. “Point taken,” he said. “You get your beauty sleep. I’ll be outside.” He sat up, and immediately regretted it when his body launched a full-scale retaliation against him. His breath escaped in a hiss. “Everything hurts. I’m blaming you for this, too, just so you know.”

‘You’re _the one who detonated a powerful explosive at near point-blank range. The blast force was probably equivalent to being hit by a truck. It certainly felt like it.’_

Roman began gingerly to make his way down the ladder. “So you felt that too, huh?” 

_‘Of course I did.’_

“Good.”

_‘Is that why you didn’t engage your Aura to take the brunt of the damage? You wanted to hurt yourself just to hurt me?’_

“Yeah, let’s go with that.”

The sun was rising big and bloody between the hills as he stepped outside. There was some silly rural superstition about bloodred sunrises, but Roman couldn’t remember what it was. Probably nothing good. 

“All that other stuff you were dreaming about,” he said, staring at the red horizon. “You really think that’s what’s coming?”

_‘Should we fail, yes. Why, have you suddenly developed a guilty conscience?’_

“Yeah, all of a sudden there’s this voice in the back of my mind that keeps nagging me to do dumb, self-sacrificing shit. Calls itself Ozpin.”

_‘You’re hilarious.’_

“What exactly is your plan, anyway?” Roman asked as he began walking up the path to the farmhouse. “Because if it’s some variant of ‘use Torchwick as an extra life’, I am not on board.” 

_‘We need to prevent Salem from getting her hands on the Relics. The one at Beacon is secure for now. I expect she’ll move on Haven next. So that’s where we’re heading.’_

“Gee, I wish I’d known that while I still had control of an airship.”

_‘It wasn’t your airship. …And this isn’t your house.’_

With more broken windows than not, and a roof that was lilting precariously, the farmhouse looked in even worse shape than the barn, and had probably already been picked over by bandits. Roman kicked the door in, anyway. 

“Relax, I’m just taking a look around.”

There were a few crooked pictures hanging in the entryway, and the floor was coated with a thick layer of dust—the non-lucrative kind. His entrance had stirred up quite a bit of it, and he sneezed almost as soon as he stepped over the threshold. Glaring at the offending particles, he pulled his kerchief up around his nose and mouth and headed further inside. There was a canvas satchel hanging on a hook in the hall, and he grabbed it as he walked past. 

_‘Torchwick.’_

“It’s not stealing if the stuff’s been abandoned.” Off the hall was the kitchen—his first stop. He began opening cabinets and tossing anything that still looked edible into the bag. In his search he managed to turn up some canned food, a couple boxes of crackers, one jar of jerky and another of dried fruit.

_‘These people likely had to leave in a hurry. They may intend to return.’_

“Or, they never made it out,” said Roman, closing a cabinet door that had four long, deep scratches down its face. Old, worn memories of a night long ago—the sound of crying and of claws scratching at the door—fluttered across his mind, and he brushed them away as he always did. Living in the present also meant not dwelling on the past. “Anyway, we’ll need supplies if we’re hauling our asses all the way to Haven. Or do you want me to starve to death?” 

_‘I wouldn’t be entirely averse to the idea.’_

Roman rolled his eyes and kept rummaging. The last cabinet contained a few tins of tea, a bag of coffee grounds, and…a tin of cocoa. Roman stared at the tin for a long moment before grabbing it and stuffing it in the bag. “Neo likes this shit,” he grumbled, then wondered why he’d felt the need to explain himself.

_‘You know, you’re probably right. No one’s going to miss it.’_

~ * ~

Ozpin didn’t offer any further objections as Roman searched the rest of the house, but there really wasn’t much left that would be of any use. Along with the food, he managed to salvage a couple of blankets and waterskins, plus a straight razor. At least the water tank hadn’t run dry. There was enough running water for him to wash up, and afterward, put a pot over the fire to boil. When Neo got up at a more reasonable hour of the morning, they would damn well have hot drinks and the best breakfast Roman could cobble together before walking into whatever fresh hell Ozpin had in store for them. Cinder had spoken of necessary sacrifices, too. The thought that they were simply changing one grand machinator for another churned Roman’s stomach. But just like before, his back was up against the wall. The best they could do was to keep surviving. It was what they were good at.

He returned to the bathroom while he waited for the water to boil, and lathered up his face. Then he flicked the razor open, but paused as he brought it to his throat. He stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and asked, “Do I have to worry about you and sharp objects?”

_‘I’m not going to slit your throat, if that’s what you’re asking.’_

“Okay.” Roman willed his hand not to tremble as he drew the blade over his skin, but he wasn’t entirely successful, and he nicked his jaw on the second stroke. “Damn it! I’m so _fucking_ tired.” He dabbed away the blood with his kerchief and kept going at a slower pace. 

_‘You don’t trust me at all,’_ Ozpin observed. 

“We’ve established that,” said Roman through gritted teeth. 

_‘We will need to learn to trust each other as a matter of survival. I am sorry if I’ve been…callous. A long time ago, I made a promise to myself that I would do my best to coexist harmoniously with the souls with whom I cohabit, and I have no intention of breaking that promise now. Not unless you force my hand.’_

It was a touching sentiment, but as soon as Roman heard the words “force my hand,” his hand twitched, and another drop of blood appeared in the washbasin. “ _Shit!_ ”

_‘Here.’_ Roman actually saw his eyes flash gold in the mirror as Ozpin took control. Despite his panicked protests, Ozpin simply finished the job with a few more swift yet cautious swipes of the razor. “See? Still breathing.”

_‘Wow, kudos for not fucking murdering me with a straight razor!’_

Ozpin sighed as he stared into the mirror. “I didn’t say it wouldn’t take some getting used to. For both of us. You don’t think it puts me on edge, to look into a mirror and see the eyes of an enemy?” He frowned. “Well, eye… How do you fight with your hair in your face like this? There’s a little thing called depth perception…” He fell silent when he lifted Roman’s bangs. The bright green of his left eye contrasted starkly with the golden brown of his right, the color of dying leaves in autumn. 

There was a stretch of awkward silence that Roman finally felt the need to fill. _‘Heterochromia runs in the family. It looks cuter on Neo. Just makes me look two-faced.’_

“That’s not what I…” Ozpin let the hair fall back over Roman’s face and smiled ruefully. “My eyes were a similar color. For a moment, I almost recognized myself. Believe it or not, though, I’ve never had red hair before.” He turned his head slowly from side to side. “It’s rather eye-catching.”

_‘What, the silver fox thing wasn’t working for you?’_

Ozpin chuckled. “No, it was. I suppose what I mean is, I could have done worse.” 

Roman scoffed. _‘Please, you couldn’t have done_ better _. I’m a fucking ten.’_

Ozpin actually laughed. “Alright, I could have done _much_ worse.” 

Roman’s scroll pinged with a message from Neo: _Where are you?_

Ozpin stepped back and let Roman retake control. He picked up his scroll from the countertop and replied: _Farmhouse. The place still has running water and edible-looking food. I’ll have breakfast ready by the time you get cleaned up._

_Coming,_ she replied immediately. Then, a moment later, _You OK?_

A dozen responses flashed through his mind: Just peachy; Could be worse; Ozpin is a massive tool, but what else is new; I don’t know; No. He settled on: _Still breathing._

He stopped in the doorway as he left the bathroom, and took one last look over his shoulder at his reflection in the mirror. “I’m not so shallow that you can win me over by appealing to my vanity.” He tightened his kerchief around his neck and set off down the hall. “But it’s a good start.” 

~ * ~

Roman managed to improvise some odd-looking cornmeal hotcakes that were surprisingly decent with enough maple syrup. And two mugs of hot cocoa. Neo gave him a curious look over the rim of her mug as they sipped their drinks together at the table, but Roman pretended not to notice. The stupid sugary drink seemed to make Ozpin less jumpy, so it was worth it in Roman’s book. Not to mention, it was fucking delicious—why had he ever stopped drinking this crap?

“Oz says we need to go to Haven.”

_Oz?_ Neo mouthed. 

Roman ignored that, too. At this point, he and Ozpin were about as familiar as it gets, so if that didn’t entitle him to use the man’s nickname, he didn’t know what would. For fuck’s sake, Ozpin hadn’t even stopped talking to him while he’d been in the shower, which…hadn’t actually seemed as weird at the time as it did now, in retrospect. Roman cleared his throat. “It’s not the worst place we could go. We’ve got contacts in Mistral.” 

_‘I doubt we’ll need to make use of_ your _contacts.’_

Roman was getting better at tuning Ozpin out with every passing hour. “But I just have to say this once, so you know. You don’t have to come with us.” Neo’s eyes narrowed, daring him to choose his next words carefully. So he did. “For all we know, this could just be another suicide mission.” Ozpin’s silence on that point wasn’t reassuring. “And it isn’t even our fight, Neo. Just because I’m caught up in this mess, doesn’t mean you have to throw yourself in with me.” 

Neo stood so quickly her chair toppled over backwards. She rounded the table, looking mad enough to smack Roman clear across the face, but instead, she draped herself over the back of his chair and wrapped her arms tightly across his chest, resting her cheek against his. He’d held her like this countless times back when they were kids, fighting each day to survive in the streets of the capital city. On bad nights, when it felt like death was dogging their steps and their fellow man showed them no mercy, he had held her tight to ward off the cold from sinking into her small frame, and to communicate what he couldn’t put into words. Every time, it had always meant the same thing. Something like: _All we have is each other, and that’s all we need._

“Got it,” he said. “Sorry for opening my dumb mouth.” 

She smacked him playfully on the side of the head, then calmly righted her chair and returned to sipping her cocoa. 

“Just, no heroics, okay? If you see me do something colossally stupid, don’t follow my example.” 

She gave a noncommittal shrug. _No promises._

_‘Your sister has the heart of a Huntress.’_

Roman gazed across the table at Neo, sipping contentedly at her hot chocolate like any normal young girl. She really was excellent at illusions. “She’s only ever had two choices: Hunt or be hunted.” 

~ * ~

After breakfast, Ozpin said he needed to contact an associate of his. Roman did not like that idea in the slightest, but Ozpin didn’t give him a choice in the matter, taking back control from him as easily as if he were pulling a toy from the hands of a toddler. Roman was left to seethe silently in the back of his own mind.

Neo could tell whenever Ozpin took over, and she wouldn’t leave his side until Roman was himself again. Ozpin didn’t seem to mind. He walked outside with Neo at his elbow, watching his every move. Roman expected him to use his scroll, but instead he raised Roman’s cane in the air and fired a single charge straight up into the sky. Only, instead of flaring the usual bright red, this one exploded in a burst of emerald green.

“He should be here shortly,” said Ozpin, lowering the cane. 

_‘How did you do that?’_

“Magic,” said Ozpin, simply.

_‘Right. Magic. Hey, if you have magic powers, does that mean_ I _have magic powers?’_

“One step at a time, Torchwick. I need to know if I can trust you first. Although, speaking of magic, how did you get all the way out here? I haven’t seen an airship, or any wreckage.” 

_‘Yeah, I took a running jump_ off _a perfectly good airship and hitched a ride on the back of a Grimm.’_

“You’re…not lying.” 

_‘You can tell when I’m lying?’_

“Yes.” 

_‘Huh.’_

“That doesn’t concern you?”

Roman gave a mental shrug. _‘It’s a little annoying. But I’ve got nothing to hide. I’m not coy about what I do. Sure, I lie sometimes to get people to do what I want, but me, personally? I’m an open book.’_ Neo had even said he tended to overshare. Well, she’d written it on a sticky note and stuck it over his mouth. She had very effective ways of getting her point across. 

Ozpin’s attention was drawn by a crow that had landed in the tree above them. It tilted its head to observe them and _cawed_ loudly. 

“Yes, it’s really me,” Ozpin said to the crow. “I know this doesn’t look good, but he and I have come to an arrangement. More or less.” 

_‘Uh, Oz? Why are you talking to a bird?’_ Roman asked in his calmest ‘placate the crazy person with your life in his hands’ voice. 

“It’s crow,” Ozpin muttered under his breath. Then, to the crow, “I promise you it’s safe to come down.” 

_‘Okay, why are you talking to a_ crow _? Neo’s gonna think we’ve lost our collective mind.’_ She was already looking between him and the crow with a deeply puzzled expression. 

Then the crow dove down off the branch, and where it should have landed in front of them, Qrow Branwen rose in its place. The only thing that kept Roman from leaping six vertical feet and whacking the thing with his cane was Ozpin. Neo took a step back and unsheathed her sword a fraction, but she wouldn’t attack unless she determined Roman was in danger. 

Qrow looked him up and down slowly and grimaced. “Well, shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Qrow: Caw caw motherfuckers.


	4. Aftermath

_‘Qrow is a_ crow _? That’s a little on the nose, isn’t it?’_

“It’s really you in there?” Qrow asked, leaning in and squinting at Roman’s face. Roman wished he could sneer and flip the bird the bird, but Ozpin kept his body language neutral and nonthreatening, both hands clasped over the handle of his cane in front of him.

“It is. And I’d like my cane back,” said Ozpin. 

Apparently, like some sort of code phrase, that was all Qrow needed to hear. He reached behind him and unhooked an elaborately carved silver cylinder from his belt.He stared down at it for a moment, and then tossed it to Ozpin. When Oz caught it, he clamped down on a lever on the side of the handle, and the shaft of the cane extended with a brutal _snap_. “Thank you. Already I feel a little more like myself.” He retracted the cane once more and clipped it through the belt loops at the back of Roman’s coat.

Qrow’s shoulders slumped even further, and he groaned. “Damn it Oz, why _him_?”

Ozpin averted his gaze. “That is something I have yet to determine. Still, things are as they are, and we must make the best of them.”

Qrow’s attention shifted to Neo, who stood at Ozpin’s flank, her hand still wrapped firmly around the handle of her umbrella, ready for a fight. “And what’s with little miss murder vibes?”

“The two are a package deal, apparently. Brother and sister.”

Qrow scoffed. “I wouldn’t turn my back on her if I were you.”

“I believe I can rely on her to the extent that Torchwick’s interests are concerned. She will fight beside him regardless of which side he’s on.”

_‘Would you two quit talking about us like we’re not_ right here _? Neo’s mute, not deaf.’_

“Do you have something to contribute to the conversation, Torchwick?” Ozpin asked. Roman hated the way Ozpin made him sound—like a dusty old academic lecturing from an ivory tower. 

_‘Yeah, tell Feathers my murderous sister makes a mean blackbird pie.’_

“I’m not telling him that.”

“What’d he say?” Qrow demanded. “Is he trash-talking me? Tell him if it weren’t for his dumb luck getting tangled up with you, I’d’ve already removed that stupid hat and his head along with it!”

_‘I can hear you, idiot. And that’s rich, coming from a grown man in a cape.’_

Ozpin rubbed his temples and sighed. “I feel a headache coming on.” Neo peered up at him in concern, then gave Qrow one of the dirtiest looks in her arsenal.

Qrow put his hands up defensively. “Hey, he started it. I think.”

“I’m finishing it,” said Ozpin. “We have more important matters to discuss. Qrow, I want the rundown of what transpired at Beacon after I was out of the picture. Did Ms. Nikos make it out safely?”

Qrow hung his head, his ire disappearing like air from a balloon, leaving him deflated. “She went back, Oz. And went down fighting like a Huntress.”

Roman was nearly subsumed by a wave of deep remorse for this girl he'd never met. It was frightening. But it was also familiar, as though he'd experienced such loss countless times before. "She... If I had only..." Ozpin’s grip tightened around the handle of Roman’s cane. “Who else did we lose?”

“You and Pyrrha were our only two high-level casualties, but plenty of civilians didn’t make the evacuation point, and from what I saw, I’d guess at least a couple of students from each academy won’t be going home. And since the tower got knocked out, all communication with the other kingdoms is down. Cinder’s broadcast was the last thing they saw.”

“And fear spreads like a disease,” said Ozpin.

“Ironwood insisted he had no idea why his soldiers turned on us, but he’s already made a ‘tactical retreat’ back to Atlas, and word is, they’re about to close their borders.”

“If you manage to get through to him, tell him to increase security on his command ships. That goes for cybersecurity as well.”

“They hacked the goddamn soldiers?” Qrow growled. His crimson eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Was it him?”

Ozpin sighed. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Qrow went very still, and Roman saw in his eyes the moment his anger shifted from his enemy to his friend. “You’re _defending_ him?”

“I _need_ him, Qrow,” said Ozpin, exasperated. “If I’ve learned anything from this whole debacle thus far, it’s that I don’t understand the reincarnation process as well as I thought. I have no idea what sort of person I might end up with next. At least Torchwick has the potential to be useful. He’s the devil we know.”

“I can’t argue with you on those counts,” said Qrow through gritted teeth. “But he should suffer for his crimes.”

“And who would that help?”

“The victims, Oz!” Qrow looked on the verge of lashing out, and Neo slipped into a defensive stance in front of Ozpin. 

“What would you have me do, exactly? Turn myself in to the authorities? Stand trial? Languish in jail, where I will be of help to no one?" Ozpin shook his head. "Suffering breeds more suffering,” he said, glancing at Neo. “I’ve seen it countless times. And quite honestly, we have bigger fish to fry. Torchwick didn’t orchestrate this attack. And we can’t afford to waste our efforts on every one of Salem’s pawns—especially ones she’s already sacrificed.”

Qrow took a deep breath and backed off, so Neo did, too. “You’re a cold strategist, Ozpin,” said Qrow. “You’re right. But that doesn’t make it any less fucked up.”

“Desperate times, Qrow,” said Ozpin. 

“Yeah, I know.” Qrow pulled out a flask and took a belt from it. “Can you just—make me a promise?”

“That depends on what it is.”

Qrow fixed him with a searching look. “You said each reincarnation changes you.” Another powerful emotion threatened to overwhelm Roman—this time, a sense foreboding that didn’t belong to him. “Watch this one, Oz.”

“It’s such a gradual thing…” Ozpin tugged at Roman’s kerchief self-consciously, then caught himself, and lowered his hand to his side. “I could use a friend at my side,” he said. “Not to mention, I’m feeling a little outnumbered.” He gave a broad gesture that encompassed himself and Neo. 

Qrow looked pained. “There’s one more thing I haven’t told you yet. It’s about Ruby.” Just like that, Qrow’s guard was back up, and he was positively radiating unease. “You’ve got Torchwick under control, right? If he tries to do anything you don’t like, you can stop him?”

“Yes,” said Ozpin. “He’s no threat to us anymore. What is it, Qrow? Is Ms. Rose alright?”

“She took out that wyvern. All on her own.” He and Ozpin shared a significant look. 

“So she has begun to realize her full potential,” said Ozpin, finally. 

“But she’s painted a huge target on her back in the process. The thing doesn’t seem to be dead—at least, it hasn’t disintegrated like it should. Its petrified corpse is still clinging to the side of the tower, attracting more Grimm, and announcing to anyone who knows what to look for just what happened up there. And Ruby hasn’t woken up yet. I took her home to recover…along with Yang. They’ll be okay, but they’re vulnerable. And Beacon— Glynda and the other professors are doing their best to hold the place together, but it’s overrun. I can’t leave. Not yet.” He hung his head. “I’m sorry.” 

Ozpin reached out as if to put a hand on his shoulder, then thought better of it. “Of course. You should stay where you’re needed most. I will be fine.” He tried for a reassuring smile, but it was halfhearted at best. 

“You could come back with me,” Qrow suggested, but his heart wasn’t in it, either. He already knew Ozpin’s answer. 

“I don’t think that would be wise,” said Ozpin. “For a number of reasons. I don’t wish to cause any more pain, but for now, I must play this close to the chest.” 

“Yeah,” Qrow sighed. “I know. Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secrets. Like I always have.” 

“Thank you, Qrow.” 

“And I’ll come check in with you whenever I can. I’m guessing you’re heading to Haven?” Ozpin nodded. “I’m sure the rest of us won’t be far behind. Here, I should get your new contact info.” Qrow pulled out his scroll and Ozpin did the same. When they held one over the other, Roman Torchwick appeared as a contact on Qrow’s scroll, and Qrow Branwen appeared in Roman’s contacts. “Kingdom-wide communication’s been spotty with the tower down, but if it’s urgent, just signal again and I’ll come flyin’.” 

“Your help has been invaluable. I’m sure I don’t say that enough,” said Ozpin. “I won’t detain you any longer.” He offered his hand tentatively. 

Qrow stared at it hard until Ozpin began to withdraw it, but then he grabbed it and pulled Ozpin into a firm embrace, startling Ozpin and Roman both. “Take care, Oz,” he murmured. Then, with a fluttering of feathers, he was gone, winging his way up above the treetops. 

“You’ve been awfully quiet,” said Ozpin, once Qrow was out of sight. 

Neo pointed to herself questioningly. 

He realized he _had_ been staring in her general direction. “Sorry, I was talking to your brother.”

_‘Sometimes, I prefer to listen.’_

Neo squinted up at him and made a shooing motion with her hands. Ozpin got the message and returned control to Roman with a weary sigh. 

It had been so long this time that Roman nearly collapsed, and had to steady himself against a tree for a moment while he regained his sense of self. “We’ve fallen in with a very odd crowd, Neo,” he said, finally, lighting a cigar.

She nodded empathetically. 

To Ozpin, he muttered, “So is the bird thing his Semblance, or...?”

_‘No, I gave him the ability so he could gather intelligence for me.’_

“Oookay. You turned your friend into a bird. That’s...special.” 

_‘It was practical.’_

“I’m sure. And Little Red’s got some big trick up her sleeve, too?”

_‘Ruby is much stronger than you know.’_

Roman blew out smoke through his teeth. “Explains why she’s been such a pain in the ass. Still, if I ever see her again, I’ve half a mind to—“

“—apologize and attempt to mend fences,” Ozpin interjected, in Roman’s own damn voice. Neo startled and looked at him in surprise. 

“What? No! Don’t put words in my mouth!”

_‘We_ will _see her again, and I will not permit you to lay a finger on her.’_

“You can’t make me play nice with the little brat,” Roman growled. 

_‘I can, actually, and I will if I must. But it would be easier on both of us if you would just be civil on your own.’_

Roman felt like screaming, but he also felt Ozpin poised to retake control if he slipped into a violent mood. He bit back down on his cigar and inhaled deeply, trying to scorch his lungs with smoke. “Listen, Oz, it sounds like we’re just gonna make each other’s lives a living hell from here on out. Isn’t there some way for you to move on to the next sucker _without_ offing me? What if we find a priest, get him to do an exorcism on me?” 

The question seemed to offend the late headmaster. _‘You’re not possessed, Torchwick. Our souls are intertwined. Over time, we will come to think more and more alike, until we share the same thoughts, and our two souls become one. The process is irreversible once it’s begun. If you live long enough, not even death will separate us. If not, I'm afraid we are stuck with each other ’til death do us part.'_

Roman threw his cigar down and ground it into the dirt with his cane. “I want a divorce.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ozpin, with a cane in each hand and anime sparkles in his eyes: Dual wielding.


	5. Immortality

Ozpin’s assurances that this whole soulmates thing was irreversible and quite probably eternal would really be freaking Roman out if he allowed himself to think about it for more than two seconds at a time. But he hadn’t resigned himself to his fate just yet. He needed more information. All he had so far was Ozpin’s insufferably cryptic word for any of this. He needed to know _precisely_ what the hell was going on, because Ozpin hadn’t told him everything.

Whenever Roman was feeling introspective (usually when Ozpin was in control, and he had nothing better to do), he would try to feel out the new contours in his mind, to become more aware of Ozpin’s presence. It was like walking down a corridor of locked doors. But Roman was good with locks. He had a keen sense for how the tumblers shifted, what leverage to use, when to apply pressure and when to ease off. He’d never encountered a lock he couldn’t pick, a safe he couldn’t crack. It was just a matter of time, and patience. But he needed more room to work, out of the shadow of Ozpin’s constant suspicion. Ozpin himself had said he wanted to trust Roman. Roman just had to give him reasons to. So he would go along with Ozpin’s plan—for now. And he would get the full truth from the mysterious headmaster one way or another.

They gathered their supplies and set out on the road soon after Qrow left. There were Grimm flocking to the capital from all across the kingdom, so as much as they all could have used another day of rest and recuperation, staying too near the city was asking for trouble.

“We don’t have a map,” Roman mused, hefting the bag of supplies from one shoulder to the other for about the fourth time in twenty minutes. The thing was just heavy enough to be annoying—like if he’d stuffed Neo in a bag and decided to carry her around. He was on the lookout for a vehicle they could...acquire. 

Any vague hopes Roman had that the lack of a map would deter Ozpin from his master plan were immediately dashed. _‘Don’t worry, I know the way.’_

“Fantastic,” Roman sighed. “Neo, you sure you’re good to potentially walk all the way to Mistral in those heels?”

She nodded resolutely and kept walking. She had stopped growing years ago, but she still fought for every inch she could get. Plus, she refused to allow her brother to be better dressed than she was in any situation.

“Okay,” Roman said doubtfully. “But don’t start getting snippy with me in another ten miles...” He trailed off. There was a man on horseback coming toward them down the road. His back was hunched over his steed, his clothes worn and dusty, and the wide-brimmed straw hat he wore to keep the sun off his aged face looked as though it had been chewed through by mice in several places. A farmer, by all appearances.

Well, Roman would have preferred something with a motor, but a horse would do in a pinch. He hailed the man with a friendly wave, and the two parties came to a halt where they met. The farmer looked down at the younger man and his slight female companion, took in their rumpled clothes and the single sack of belongings between them, and his kind blue eyes filled with pity. The sucker.

“Are the two of you refugees from the city?” he asked.

Roman inclined his head, feigning grief. “It was horrible. I’ve never seen so many Grimm.” Neo was quick to take up the part of the frightened little girl, clutching her brother’s sleeve and averting her eyes from the stranger’s gaze. Normally, the two of them would simply take whatever it was they wanted, or manipulate others to get it for them. But with Ozpin alert and able to thwart Roman’s schemes at any time, they had to fall back on the more subtle methods they’d used in the past.

As if on queue, Ozpin’s voice murmured in his mind, _‘What are you playing at, Torchwick?’_

“I don’t know what this world is coming to,” said the farmer gravely. “Are the two of you hungry? My home is not far. My wife and I would be happy to share a meal with you. And we have a spare room, if you need a place to stay the night. It's dangerous to be traveling out here alone and unarmed.”

Roman shook his head. “Thank you for the kind offer, but we still have far to travel today. My sister and I are on our way to Mistral. We have family there.”

“Mistral?” the farmer repeated, shocked. “That is a long journey, indeed.”

“It is. And we have no means of transport. We lost everything in the attack. Well, everything except our money.” Roman kept his voice carefully meek when he said, “I was hoping, when I saw that strong horse of yours, that you might be willing to part with her, for a certain sum.”

The farmer ran his hand over the auburn hide of his horse’s neck absentmindedly. “Well, I...” He shook his head, coming to a decision. “You are clearly in greater need of her than I. How much can you afford to give me for her?”

“Does five hundred Lien sound fair?”

“Fair enough,” said the farmer. He dismounted, and gave the horse a final fond caress down its cheek. “Her name is Umber. She will get you where you need to go.” He handed the reins over to Roman, who accepted them with a humble nod.

“Sister, dear, pay the good man.” Neo dug into the pocket of her jacket and withdrew the agreed upon sum. She handed the cards over to the farmer with a grateful smile. “Are you sure you can get home safely from here?” Roman asked the man, anticipating Ozpin’s question before he could voice it himself.

“Yes, my farm is just over that hill there.” He pointed back in the direction they’d come, where Roman recalled having seen a gate and a rough, dirt path leading off from the main road just around the bend from where they now stood. “It is you two I worry for. I wish you safe travels, friends.”

“Thank you,” said Roman. “We won’t soon forget your kindness.” He transferred their supplies to the saddlebag, and led the horse away a little ways down the path so he could murmur under his breath, “I’m assuming you know how to ride a horse.”

_‘I do. If you’ll let me take the reins.’_

“Funny,” Roman drawled. “Just do it.”

The next moment, Roman was simply observing as he mounted the horse with ease and held a hand out to Neo. She gave the offered hand a suspicious look, but accepted it nonetheless, and allowed him to help her up. She settled in behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist. Ozpin tipped his hat to the farmer and rode off, soon leaving the rolling hills behind for lush forest.

“You surprised me, Torchwick,” Ozpin said after a period of riding in silence through the trees. “I expected you to try to steal the horse, but you are quite capable of kindness when you want to be.”

 _‘When I want to be,’_ Roman agreed, feeling smug. Ozpin’s optimism was his blindspot. Neo’s illusion would be wearing off right about now, and the money would disappear without a trace.

~ * ~

The riding, as it turned out, was almost as tedious as the walking. This time, because Roman was left with nothing to occupy him but his thoughts. He was, in the most literal sense, just along for the ride. He wished he could talk to Neo—commiserate, collaborate. He always enjoyed their conversations, even if they were rather one-sided. Ozpin, on the other hand, seemed just as content with long stretches of silence as he was with giving detailed, impromptu lectures on one inane subject or another. Roman wished he could sleep through both, but as long as Ozpin remained awake, so would he. Roman wondered vaguely how much further it was to the next village.

Ozpin trailed off in the middle of his sentence—something to do with the strength of a death stalker’s carapace. “You’re not listening to me, are you?” he sighed.

 _‘Hm?’_ said Roman, just to fuck with him.

Ozpin glanced back over his shoulder. “What about you, Ms. Neo? Have I lost you as well?”

She shook her head. She actually appeared interested in what he’d been saying. Whose side was she on, anyway?

“Well, it’s good to know I’ve only managed to bore _half_ my audience to distraction. This is all potentially useful information, you know. But if you’d prefer, I’d be happy to tell another story.”

 _‘Are you sure you’ll be able to finish before we get to Haven?’_ Roman asked, all innocence.

Ozpin huffed indignantly. “I’ve never been subjected to quite this much sass from any of my previous hosts.” He felt Neo shake with laughter, and shot her a betrayed look over his shoulder. “Well. My muscle memory will be one of the first things you inherit, Torchwick. And when _you’re_ competent on horseback, _you_ can choose the topic of conversation.”

Roman actually used to know how to handle a horse when he was a boy, but he hadn’t gone near one in twenty years. The only thing he was confident of in his horseback riding abilities now was that he’d end up on his ass. So he held his tongue and left Ozpin to lapse into a silence that Ozpin probably would have called “contemplative,” but that Roman would have described as “brooding.” He could sense that the implications of their bond were eating at Ozpin nearly as much as they were him, although from what Roman could tell, Oz got the better end of the deal. Apparently, his identity always remained dominant—even if it was influenced slightly by each new host—while Roman would eventually become just another facet in the gemstone of his past lives. If not in this lifetime, then certainly in the next. It sounded like a slow death, by bits and pieces over years and decades. Ozpin said he’d hardly even notice it.

They had had a moment to themselves before they’d left that morning, while Neo did a final sweep of the farmhouse to be sure Roman hadn’t missed anything good. “You could have just killed me last night and saved us both the trouble,” Roman had said.

 _‘It isn’t death, Torchwick,’_ Ozpin had responded gravely. _‘It’s immortality.’_

Now, the silence was weighing heavily on his mind, and Roman found himself wishing the headmaster had kept on lecturing, despite Roman’s inattention. He’d rather be bored out of his skull than left to ponder his own existential crisis. He got the feeling his and Ozpin’s worries were only amplifying each other, like a feedback loop of general unease swirling in his mind.

Which made it even more jarring when a crow flew down to land on a tree branch up ahead of them, and Ozpin yanked hard on the reins, bringing the horse to a skidding halt. “Qrow?” he called.

But the bird merely _cawed_ and took off again, disappearing into the trees.

_‘Why do I get the feeling that happens a lot?’_

Ozpin sighed and urged the horse onward. The worst part was, Roman felt his disappointment almost as though it were his own. It was pathetic. “It’s not the first time,” Ozpin admitted. “But all crows really do look alike—although, don’t let Qrow hear you say that.”

_‘You should put a ring on him.’_

“Excuse me?”

 _‘You know, the ones they put around birds’ legs to keep track of ‘em. Yeesh, I wasn’t suggesting you_ marry _the guy.’_

“O-oh.” Ozpin cleared his throat. “Yes, well. I doubt he would tolerate such a thing.”

_'Sooo, were you and he…?’_

“That’s none of your business,” Ozpin snapped, startling Neo.

_‘I thought your business was my business, teach.’_

Ozpin took a deep breath and released it slowly. “What I meant was,” he said, more calmly, “it’s in the past now. That man is dead.”

An entire murder of crows flew by overhead, screeching and cawing to each other, and Ozpin tracked them with his gaze. Through the thinning trees up ahead, he could just make out what looked at first like a dark cloud, but was in reality hundreds more crows circling in the smoky air above…

He cracked the reins and the horse took off at a gallop toward the foreboding omen. They burst out of the tree line and down a grassy incline toward a small village. Or what used to be a village. Most of the houses were burnt out, smoke still rising from the rubble. Anything that was still standing was ransacked. Belongings were strewn everywhere—clothes and furniture out in the street, bedding hanging out of broken windows, smashed plates and glasses scattered in the dirt. As they rode down the main street, they saw more and more signs of the recent chaos, but not a single living person. There were bodies, though. A feast for the crows.

_‘Looks like the place was hit by bandits. They’ve got all the subtlety of a pack of ursa in a dust shop. There’s no art to banditry, no finesse.’_

“It seems the survivors have already evacuated,” Ozpin observed. “Still, we should—" A child’s cry pierced the eerie silence, and Ozpin immediately raced to find its source. One street over, a little boy who couldn’t have been more than three years old was sitting in the dirt at the end of the road, staring up at three enormous death stalkers approaching from the tree line.

“Ah,” said Ozpin, dismounting and hitching the horse to the nearest fencepost. Neo leapt down beside him, waiting on his lead. “Lesson One.” He gave Roman’s cane a spin. “Save the child. Kill the Grimm.” And suddenly, Roman had control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ozpin: Don’t steal the horse, Torchwick.
> 
> Roman: How ‘bout I do, anyway~
> 
>  
> 
> [A/N: Sooo this fic is tilting in a slight Cloqwork direction... I didn’t plan it that way, but I’m terrible shipper garbage and I can only fight it for so long. It won’t be a major part of the plot, but it should be fun :) Rating will stay T.]


	6. Lesson One

“ _This_ is Lesson One? _Seriously?_ ” 

Nevertheless, Roman flipped his cane in his hand and fired the grappling hook, catching the handle in the back of the kid’s jacket and yanking him back before giant pincers bisected the space he’d just been occupying. 

_‘I believe in providing my students with hands-on learning experiences.’_

Roman reeled the kid in and picked him up by the back of his jacket. The kid kept wailing, so Roman shook him. “Shut up, you little runt,” he growled. The kid stared at him with wide eyes and fell to quiet sniffling. He set the boy down inside the nearest doorway. “Stay,” he ordered, and then sprinted back to his sister's side and returned his attention to the approaching Grimm. 

One quick glance exchanged with Neo confirmed their initial plan of attack. The first death stalker lashed out with its pincers at the place where they’d been standing moments before, shattering Neo’s illusion. Meanwhile, they had already flanked the creature on either side, and Roman fired three shots into it while Neo lunged and severed one of its legs with her sword. The creature lurched as it rebalanced itself, but when the smoke cleared from Roman’s attack, it looked as though he’d hardly done it any damage.

_‘If you had been paying attention earlier, you would recall that a death stalker’s carapace is strong enough to withstand nearly any direct attack.’_

Roman sneered and aimed higher, lining his sights up with the creature’s stinger curled up over its body. He fired again, and the venom sac burst, raining viscous purple venom down on the creature’s back. It hissed and screamed as the venom seared through its chitinous exoskeleton and into the tender body beneath. It snatched at Roman with its pincers and swept the mangled remainder of its tail out at Neo, but Neo vaulted over the obstacle, and Roman stepped aside and hooked the bottom pincer with the handle of his cane, driving it into the ground. The death stalker overbalanced, and Neo took the opening, catching its tail as it swept back around, and using it to swing up onto its back. Before it even registered her presence, she ran up and drove her sword down through the steaming wound atop its thorax. It was a killing blow. 

She leapt off its back as it started to disintegrate beneath her, and the remaining two death stalkers burst through the ashes. Now, it was she and Roman who were flanked. But as the two Grimm charged them, they shattered another of Neo’s illusions, tearing into each other with their pincers instead. As they reeled back in pain and confusion, Neo ran underneath one, ripping all the way down its unprotected belly with her sword, while Roman ran under the other, firing round after round up into soft flesh. Because neither Grimm could see its attacker, they both lashed out in a final bid of desperation at the last thing they knew had done them harm—each other. Both stingers shot forward simultaneously, each burying itself between the armor plates of the other death stalker. They died entwined with each other in an embrace of mutual destruction. 

Roman straightened, brushing Grimm ash from his lapels. Next he removed his hat to blow off the ash from the brim. Neo was still shaking ash out of her hair when he returned to her side. “Well, Professor?” he said, clapping more ash from his gloves. “Did we pa–AAAH!”

He was side-tackled by another small child, this one about seven or eight, who immediately began chattering excitedly at him without any apparent need to stop and draw breath. Roman struggled to extract himself from the young boy’s grip with his arms pinned at his sides. “Where are these things coming from?” he asked Neo, who looked equally bewildered. As soon as the kid’s attention was redirected to Neo, he let go of Roman and tackled her next. She went rigid immediately, looking down at the overexcited child in extreme discomfort and distaste. Roman tactfully pried him off of her and held him at arm’s length. 

“You guys saved my baby brother!” he was saying, head whipping back and forth in an attempt to address the both of them at once. “You were amazing! Are you a Huntsman and Huntress? Did you come to protect us from the monsters? Those things were so scary! Do you think there will be more of them? Where did you learn to fight like that? Did you go to Beacon Academy? That’s where I want to go because when I grow up I want to be a Huntsman and save people from monsters, just like you!”

Roman smirked at the kid’s unwittingly ambiguous phrasing: he could be the Huntsman or the monster. “You got parents, kid?” he asked. 

The boy looked back in the direction of the house where Roman had left his little brother. There was now a young woman standing in the doorway, cradling the younger child in her arms and watching them all. Roman could see the deep lines of worry etched into her face even at that distance. She motioned them over to the relative safety of the house. 

“You were supposed to be watching your brother!” she hissed at the older boy, leaning down and latching a vice-like grip on his shoulder. “What happened?”

“Mom, I _really_ had to pee,” he whined. “I was gone for a minute, tops! I didn’t think he was gonna go _outside_!”

“We’ll talk about this later.” She turned to Roman and Neo with an exhausted smile. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said, swiping tears from her face. “You saved my son’s life. Please, I don’t have much, but if there’s anything I can offer you...”

“Sure,” said Roman. 

_‘Wrong answer.’_

Roman gave a forced laugh. “That was a joke. Of course we don’t want any kind of compensation. Apparently Huntsmen work for free.”

_‘Easy, Torchwick. You’ve done very well so far. I can take it from here, if you’d like.’_

It was a threat disguised as an offer. Roman set his jaw and smiled. “What can we do to help?”

~ * ~

“My husband is very sick,” the woman said, holding open the door to the upstairs bedroom to reveal a meek, wan-faced figure tucked into the bed, a bag of medical supplies open on the nightstand beside him. He was sleeping fitfully, his breath a tortured rattle. “I am— _was_ , the doctor in this village. I’ve been taking care of him, and he is getting better, although he must not look it. But everything happened so suddenly—the attack, and then the evacuation. There was a panic. Every family was only looking out for themselves. I was preparing to move him when I looked out the window and saw that our horses were gone, along with everyone else. I’d hoped, with only the four of us left in the village, that the Grimm would pass us by.”

“A sick man, two scared little boys and a woman just barely holding them all together?” said Roman. “You’re all one big Grimm magnet.”

Fresh tears welled in the woman’s eyes, but didn’t fall. “Yes, I see that now. If you hadn’t shown up…” She released a shuddering breath, shaking her head. “You were a godsend. But there _is_ one more thing you can do to help us. We still have our cart. If you can pull it behind your horse and take us into town, we will be safe there.”

Roman was inclined to listen to Ozpin’s murmured advice on this one, if they were really going to do this. “It’s getting dark,” he said. “And the house is more protection than we’ll have out on the road. It’ll be safest if we set out at dawn. My sister and I can keep alternate watch ‘til then. With any luck, when all of you are asleep, your emotions shouldn’t be such a draw to the creatures of Grimm. Are we in agreement?”

“If that’s what you think is best,” said the woman, placing her trust in him implicitly simply because she thought he was a Huntsman. He never ceased to be astounded by the human capacity for blind submission and naivety. Usually, it worked to his advantage. In this case, it was just plain pitiable. 

He looked to Neo, who searched his eyes for a long moment before nodding slightly. She knew it was Roman saying it, albeit at Ozpin’s insistence. But she was right to be concerned. They had always looked out for themselves first and foremost, as a matter of survival. Now, they were the closest they’d ever come to landing right back where they’d started—with nothing. Trying to protect others was a foolish way to lose what little they had left. 

“Then you should all get some sleep,” said Roman. 

“We’ll do our best.” The woman gathered her sons and ushered them into their father’s room. “Thank you,” she said again, and closed the door. As soon as the latch clicked, Roman turned on his heel and stalked away down the hall toward the spare bedroom. Being on the second floor, it had a clear view of the eastern tree line, from which Grimm on their way to Vale were most likely to appear. Neo followed close behind him, her brow still knitted in worry. 

Once she closed the bedroom door behind them, he turned to her. “Look, I think we’re both in complete agreement that Ozpin is a total dick.” 

_‘Um. I haven’t gone anywhere.’_

Roman ignored Ozpin’s interjection. This was a private conversation between him and his sister. Neo nodded her agreement, so Roman continued. “But Cinder was, too, as it turned out. And that one’s completely on me, I’ll admit.” 

Neo gave him a long-suffering look. She hadn’t liked Cinder from the start, but she could be a touch overprotective of him at times, as he was of her. A consequence of which was that they almost never approved of each other’s romantic partners. Roman personally had never taken more pleasure in torturing someone than he had a boy who’d been stupid enough to break Neo’s heart. All of which was to say, he hadn’t implicitly trusted Neo’s judgement when it had come to Cinder. But he should have known better than to mix business with pleasure. 

“My point is, we survived Cinder.”

Neo rested a hand on her hip and gave him another deadpan look. _Barely._  

“ _And_ ,” Roman added, “we learnt a few things in the process. It was what Oz would call a ‘hands-on learning experience.’ We— _I_ —won’t make the same mistakes again. Not if I can help it.”

Neo cracked a smile as she scribbled something down in the little notepad she always kept with her. She tore out the page and handed it to Roman.  _At least you’re not fucking Ozpin_ , it said. 

_‘Charming.’_

Roman pretended to be scandalized. “Neo, he’s much too old for me.” He and Neo laughed, and Ozpin’s annoyance simmering across Roman’s mind only made Roman enjoy the moment more. “Speaking of our pal Oz’s love life, did you know he and Q— _koff, koff!_ ” Roman started hacking violently as his throat constricted on the name. He glared at nothing in particular until he recovered his breath. “Never mind,” he muttered. “I’ll take the first watch. I’m too wound up to sleep just yet.” Funny, how a person could be dead tired and restless at the same time. 

Neo put a hand on his shoulder, imparting two clear and distinct meanings: _Don’t strain yourself_ , and _Wake me if you need to._ With that, she settled into the rickety wooden bed in the corner, and Roman took a seat at the chair and table by the window, gazing out into the night. Soon, Neo’s breathing slowed and shallowed, and silence reigned. But not for long.

_‘The two of you surpassed my expectations today.'_

"Oh?"

_'I’m almost ashamed to admit that you and Neo have demonstrated better coordination and communication than most teams out of Beacon. You fight with incredible synchronization.’_

“Some lessons can’t be taught at fancy academies,” murmured Roman.

_‘That’s true,’_ Ozpin admitted. _‘I’m left wondering about one thing, however. Your Semblance.’_ Ah, there it was. Roman had been waiting for that particular penny to drop. _‘Neo makes highly effective use of hers, but you’ve taken care never to use yours in combat as far as I’m aware. Are you keeping it a secret for some reason? Or is it some innate effect?’_

Well, there was no use lying to Ozpin about it. He’d figure it out sooner or later. Hopefully, he wouldn’t change his mind about Roman’s potential to be “useful” after he knew. “Yeah, I don’t have a Semblance.” 

_‘What.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roman: What's Lesson One usually?
> 
> Ozpin: Well, first I launch my students off a cliff—


	7. Through the Woods

_‘Everyone has a Semblance, Torchwick. You mean to tell me that as a highly skilled fighter at, what, twenty-five...?’_

“Twenty-seven.”

_‘...that you still haven’t discovered yours?’_

Roman shrugged. “You’re the expert. I figured if I had one, I’d know about it by now.”

_‘Not necessarily. Let me just...’_ Roman felt a strange tingling sensation beneath every inch of his skin, and squirmed uncomfortably in his chair, but it was over in a second. _‘You haven’t even unlocked your Aura,’_ said Ozpin, as though Roman were some kind of scientific oddity.

Roman’s hackles rose. “Listen, Professor. I never went to an elite academy like yours. I never even set foot in a battle school. I taught myself to fight, and then I taught Neo. She figured out the rest on her own, but it came like second nature to her, like instinct. She doesn’t even understand it herself, so she sure as hell couldn’t explain it to me.”

_‘But without an active Aura, you must sustain grave injuries...’_

“Not anymore,” Roman grit out. “I carry a weapon that’s both ranged and defensive, and I’m good enough with it that in most fights, my opponent never lands a hit. When Neo and I fight together, she shields me from whatever I can’t dodge or deflect. It’s not perfect, but it’s worked just fine for us. I’ve gotten this far without relying on an Aura, or a Semblance. I don’t need them.”

_‘Don’t misunderstand me, Torchwick. I’m actually quite impressed. I didn’t mean to sound condescending. But while you may have come this far without the use of your Aura and Semblance, make no mistake, you_ will _need them going forward.’_

_“_ Tough shit. You don’t think I’ve tried? It’s not gonna happen.”

_‘I wouldn’t say that. I suspect you simply need the right teacher. Since you are clearly already fit to wield my weapon, attempting to discover your Semblance will be one of the first things we work on during training. As for your Aura, I can unlock it now.’_

“Wait, what?” said Roman, slightly panicked. 

But Ozpin had already begun speaking some kind of incantation, and as the words resonated in Roman’s mind, that same tingling sensation returned, accompanied by a gentle warmth. _‘For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee.’_

A soft, reddish-orange glow enveloped Roman’s entire being, and then gradually faded away, taking with it the worst of the lingering aches in his bones and muscles from the past couple of days. In fact, physically, he had never felt better. Sure, he was still exhausted, but deep within, he felt a fresh wellspring of vitality that was both foreign and vaguely familiar. 

_‘That is the energy that comes directly from your soul. Now that it has been released, you can tap into it freely, but be careful not to draw on it too much, especially at first. It will take practice to sustain a constant defensive Aura, but you will pick up the skill quickly, since in a sense, you already know how to do it. Your Aura is also the energy source you will draw on to produce your Semblance. As for discovering what your Semblance is, I expect it will be easier now.’_

It was a lot to take in at once. Roman had spent years frustrated with himself for not being able to do something even snot-nosed little Beacon brats could do. Then he’d spent years more putting those thoughts out of his mind, improving his fighting skills until he could outmaneuver opponents with just about any kind of Semblance. The prospect of finally being able to shed his greatest disadvantage was...overwhelming. 

So he fell back on sarcasm.  “A paragon of virtue, huh?”

_‘It’s a traditional Huntsman mantra. It is more than a little ironic in our situation, I know.’_

“I’ll say.” Roman smiled to himself. “I’m no Huntsman.”

_‘Oh, but you are. I am a Huntsman. That makes you one as well, whether you like it or not.’_

Roman’s smile fell. He hadn’t considered it that way before. “You can’t be serious. No fucking way.”

There was an uncharacteristic moment of hesitance before Ozpin spoke again. _‘I know this must all be as hard on you as it is on me, if not more so. I don’t wish to simply be a burden to you. Surely...you recognize this arrangement comes with some benefits?’_

Roman thought about his elusive Semblance, about all the skills he was supposedly going to inherit, and about the font of knowledge that Ozpin was all too willing to share—at length. Ultimately, of course, whatever Roman got out of their relationship would only serve to make him of greater use to Ozpin. But with so many recent losses, it felt good to make a few gains, regardless.

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll admit you’re not a completely useless, soul-sucking parasite who is single-handedly ruining my life and the life of my sister.”

_‘Thank you?’_

“But I want those magic powers.”

_‘Patience, Torchwick.’_ Roman thought he heard a slight smile in the headmaster’s voice. _‘So, maybe not a_ total _dick, then?’_

“Mmm, jury’s out on that one.”

~ * ~

“Nope, still a total dick!” Roman announced the next morning. The nightmares had subsided somewhat, but were no less horrific, and had come at just the right frequency to keep Roman from getting a decent stretch of sleep. He rubbed at his eyes groggily, aware of Neo watching him in sympathy from her perch on the windowsill. 

_‘I am truly sorry,’_ Ozpin murmured, sounding about as miserable as Roman felt. 

“Can it,” Roman grumbled, shoving himself up and out of bed by sheer force of will. Neo hopped down and picked his hat up off the nightstand. She dusted it off a little, and placed it on his head with a reassuring smile. 

He attempted to return her smile as best he could. “Thanks, kid.”

It seemed no more Grimm had come sniffing around during the night, or if they had, Neo had dealt with them herself. But once the family was awake and preparing to make the dangerous journey ahead, he didn’t expect their luck would hold. “Alright,” he sighed. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Outside, he hitched the family’s rickety wooden cart to the horse, and kept a careful eye on the woods as the mother loaded her husband (on a makeshift stretcher) and kids into it with a few spare belongings. One look at the pathetic lot set alarm bells ringing in Roman’s head. This whole thing spelled trouble. 

Staring out into the trees, he muttered under his breath, “You’re really gonna make us tow these people into town with gods know how many Grimm between here and there? You’ve seen ‘em, they’re practically live bait.”

_‘You would really leave this family to fend for themselves?’_

“In a heartbeat.”

Ozpin sighed. _‘Then yes, I’m making you.’_

“Fine,” Roman growled quietly. “But if it’s ever a question of protecting Neo or one of your sorry charity cases, I’ll fight you with everything I’ve got.”

_‘And I couldn’t fault you for that.’_

~ * ~ 

They trundled out onto the road under the rising sun, with Ozpin in the driver’s seat. So to speak. Neo sat with her back to him, keeping an eye on the cart and the road behind them. The forest was gripped in the kind of silence that followed catastrophe—or preceded it. The mother held her children close in the bed of the cart, her husband’s labored breathing the loudest sound any of them dared make. 

_‘I don’t like this. It feels like we’re being watched.’_

Ozpin nodded. He felt the same thing. But nothing stirred in the deep shadows between trees. 

The _crack_ of a dry branch beneath their cart wheels had the family huddling even closer together, and Ozpin and Neo tightening their grip on their weapons. 

“Mom,” whispered the older boy.

“Hush,” she said. 

“No, _Mom_. I thought I saw something running through the trees.”

Neo’s attention snapped to the boy, following his line of sight. But if there had been something there a moment ago, it was gone. The younger child began to whine in distress. Ozpin urged the horse to pick up speed, but the poor beast was limited by the weight and ungainliness of the cart. 

A howl pierced the silence from somewhere close by. It was soon joined by a chorus of others, seemingly all around them. 

“Beowolves,” said Ozpin. He put a hand on the side of the horse’s neck and murmured, “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to give us more than that.” His vision tinted green, and the horse’s eyes flared the same shade. The mare whinnied and broke from a trot into a belabored gallop, the cart rattling along behind down the rough path. 

All of a sudden, dozens of pairs of red eyes appeared in the shadows on either side of the road as the pack closed in on their prey. Neo projected an illusion of their cart losing a wheel and skidding off into the trees, and a few of the beowolves bounded after it across the road. But they didn’t chase it far before they stopped, searching, it seemed, and slowly retrained their red eyes on where the real cart was barreling away down the road. Neo could obscure it from their view, but she could do nothing to mask the emotions of the frightened family. The toddler was crying now, his older brother doing his best to keep him quiet while the mother tried to brace her husband against the cart’s violent shuddering. Again, Roman’s stubborn old memories resurfaced, but this time it was Ozpin who dismissed them, keeping them both focused on the present moment.

The Grimm gave chase once more, closing distance on them fast. Ozpin turned and raised Roman’s cane, and Roman’s instinct to shoot the wagon hitch was so powerful that Ozpin hesitated, sights lingering on the unreinforced joint. Then the beowolf at the head of the pack tried to leap up into the cart, and Ozpin quickly raised the cane higher and fired, blowing the top of the Grimm’s head clean off. Its body tumbled off the road, and its packmates simply leapt over it, undeterred from the chase. 

Ozpin aimed the cane at the sky and fired another magical emerald flare. 

_‘Come on, Oz, he’s gotta be twenty miles away, at least!’_

“Less, as the crow flies,” said Ozpin. “We just need to buy some time.”

Another beowolf tried to leap up over the side of the cart, but Neo vaulted back into the cart and opened her umbrella beneath it, using the creature’s momentum to toss it clear over the other side. When another leapt up and buried its claws into the back of the cart, Neo drove her sword through its snapping jaws and out the back of its head. She kicked its carcass down into their dust. 

“Nicely done, Ms. Neo.” Ozpin picked off a few more with well-aimed headshots, but then had to return his attention to the road ahead to steer around the next bend. The cart skidded around the curve, and Roman worried they might _actually_ lose a wheel, but the rickety contraption held together. 

_‘We should cut the Grimm bait and run while we still can.’_

“That’s not going to happen. We can either fight each other about it, or fight off these beowolves.”

Roman cursed him out—passionately. But even he could see that right now, his best option was to work with Ozpin rather than against him. _‘Check my left coat pocket.’_

Ozpin reached in and pulled out a small steel case containing three explosive red dust crystals. Funny, how Roman had stolen Vale’s entire supply of dust and had walked away with next to nothing. Sure, he’d stashed away a whole shipping container of the stuff for him and Neo to pick up on their way out of town after they’d stolen an airship in the big battle. But that had been Plan A, and in accordance with her uncanny knack for screwing with Roman, specifically, Little Red had seen fit to fuck everything up. 

“This dust is stolen, isn’t it?” Ozpin asked, even as he loaded one of the crystals into the chamber of the gun. 

_‘Looks like we’ll both just have to be a little morally flexible.’_

Ozpin turned around and aimed into the center of the pack. “The explosion may attract more Grimm.”

_‘It’ll buy us time.’_

Ozpin fired. The crystal shattered on impact and erupted in a huge fireball, vaporizing the Grimm closest to the center, and throwing those at the edge of the blast radius high up into the air. 

“I’m starting to like this cane of yours.”

The surviving beowolves slowed their pursuit, but more and more howls rose up in the woods around them, and it became apparent that the stragglers were simply waiting for the rest of the pack. But at that moment, an enormous shadow passed over them, and a blood-curdling screech silenced the howling beowolves. 

_‘Is that a fucking nevermore?!’_

Ozpin withdrew another dust crystal, but paused in the act of loading it into the chamber. A much smaller shadow darted across the ground, skirting the great airborne Grimm before disappearing into its shadow. Another shriek pierced the air, and Ozpin looked up in time to see the tip of a familiar scythe carving through one of the nevermore’s wings. In a second, the wing was severed, disintegrating in a rain of ash. The giant bird screamed as it fell to earth in a downward spiral, until the same blade that had severed its wing cleaved its head from its body. 

The nevermore’s headless corpse crashed down through the trees, and Qrow leapt from its back right before its remains fell to ash. He landed in a crouch in the middle of the road between the cart and the horde  of snarling beowolves. 

_‘The guy sure knows how to make an entrance, I’ll give him that.’_

“Get outta here!” Qrow yelled. “I’ll catch up!” 

The beowolves slowed, regarding Qrow with caution as they prowled forward, surrounding him. One lunged at him head-on, and he sliced it clean in half. The others began to work together to outflank him, but a broad sweep of his scythe drove them back. Ozpin picked a few off with precise shots as they charged Qrow, but soon he was out of range, and he returned his attention to the road ahead. Ozpin cracked the reins, and they raced away. 

“Who was _that_?” the older boy asked, peering over the back gate of the cart. 

“A very good friend of mine,” Ozpin answered. 

_‘Interesting, how you’re willing to leave a friend behind, but not a bunch of complete strangers.’_

“Qrow is one of Beacon’s finest graduates in recent memory. I taught him well,” Ozpin muttered. “He can handle himself just fine.”

Despite his words, their connection belied Ozpin’s unease. 

The road ahead was clear, and they could finally see the fortified walls and stone towers of the town in the valley below. At the speed they were going, they made the final stretch in a matter of minutes, without encountering any more Grimm along the way. 

They pulled up in front of the gates, and Ozpin dismounted and finally dispelled whatever thrall he’d cast over the horse. The beast collapsed from exhaustion—dead. 

_‘Oh, that’s just great. You killed the horse! After all the trouble Neo and I went to— Never mind.’_

Ozpin placed a hand on the horse’s snout. “She got us where we needed to go.” He sounded like he was ready to drop from exhaustion himself. Now that the adrenalin was wearing off, Roman finally noticed just how much that extended use of magic had taken out of Ozpin—out of them both. He felt like complete crap. 

The guards posted at the gate came rushing over, saying something about escorting the family to temporary refugee shelters set up within the walls. They helped the children out of the cart, and then took up the father’s stretcher between them. The mother lingered a moment, however. “I’m very sorry about your horse,” she said. “My cousin is a horse trader here in town. I’m sure I could get you another.”

“That would be very kind of you,” said Ozpin. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“It’s the least I can do. You saved us all.” She offered a fragile smile. “What do I call you?”

“It’s, er...” Well, Ozpin was technically dead, and Roman Torchwick was a wanted criminal. “Goodwitch.”

Roman supposed the choice made sense. From what he knew of Beacon Academy’s hierarchy and inner workings—and he made a point of knowing quite a lot—Ozpin and Glynda Goodwitch were practically married in their work. 

“Thank you, Mister Goodwitch,” she said, clasping his hand. Then she turned to follow the guards as they escorted her family through the gates, the older boy chattering excitedly about how he _definitely_ wanted to become a Huntsman after all that. 

Ozpin wandered down the path a little ways, following the curve of the great stone wall, while Neo worked at unstrapping the saddlebag from the dead horse. He leaned back against the wall, and let his eyes turn skyward. 

“Looking for someone?”

He started slightly, and looked over to see Qrow walking toward him down the path. The man looked a little worse for wear, but didn’t seem to have sustained any serious injuries. “Qrow.” Ozpin favored him with a tired smile. “That beowolf pack wasn’t too much trouble, I take it.”

But Qrow looked exhausted, too. “You sure know how to keep me busy,” he groused.

“I know you like a challenge,” said Ozpin.

Qrow ran a hand through his hair and returned Ozpin’s smile. “It’s good to see you again, Oz.”

Ozpin sighed. “Unfortunately, I need to...rest for a little while. Please...play nice.” 

He slumped back against the hard stone, and Roman barely had the strength to push himself back to his feet. He felt even worse now that he had control of his body again. He glanced up at Qrow from beneath the brim of his hat. “I don’t know about you, but I need a fucking drink.”

Qrow blinked once, twice, processing. “Yeah, okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roman: I worked hard to steal that horse!
> 
> Ozpin: What? 
> 
> Roman: What?


	8. Games of Luck and Skill

Before this whole soul entanglement debacle, the only two things Roman had known about Qrow Branwen had been that he was a skilled Huntsman who worked for Ozpin in some unofficial capacity, and that he was a hopeless alcoholic. So naturally, Roman left it to Qrow to find a decent bar in this backwater town. He didn’t feel quite so ill at ease around the man now that he knew just how well Ozpin had him wrapped around his finger. Qrow was unlikely to disregard Ozpin’s final request to “play nice” unless provoked, and for his part, Roman was in no shape to pick a fight with a Huntsman just because he didn’t like the guy. So they’d exchanged a few curt words, and Roman had left him to the search. 

Meanwhile, Roman and Neo hunted down a cash machine. Neo’s illusory Lien _looked_ real, but they couldn’t fool a mag scanner, and so couldn’t be relied upon in the establishments in town. Luckily, the authorites had only managed to trace three of Roman’s twelve separate bank accounts, and each one was flush with enough funds to keep him and Neo living comfortably for the rest of their days. Whoever said crime doesn’t pay clearly hadn’t been doing it right. 

Ozpin had remained conspicuously quiet since he’d relinquished control, which unnerved Roman more than his pet crow ever could. “What, no disparaging remarks?” Roman asked, his obscenely high account balance writ plain across the screen in front of him. “This is clearly not above board.”

_‘Mmm, that’s nice.’_

Roman couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’re seriously out of it, aren’t you?”

_‘Hmm?’_

Roman laughed. “Never mind. Go back to bed, dear.” He topped up his cash cards to their limits and walked away whistling. Neo grinned broadly, happy to see her brother happy again. He felt liberated, out from under Ozpin’s watchful eye—at least for a little while. He was going to thoroughly enjoy the reprieve. 

His scroll chirped with a message from Qrow. That hadn’t taken long. They headed for the location Qrow had indicated, and Roman swiped an apple off a fruit cart along the way, just because he could. He’d never tasted anything sweeter. 

~ * ~

Roman was secretly pleased with Qrow’s selection. As Vale’s preeminent crime boss, Roman had had a reputation to uphold, which meant patronizing his own more upscale joints for the most part. But he’d always had a weakness for the seedier dives of his misspent youth, where he’d first learnt to run a hustle. The tavern Qrow had found looked like a stopping off point for all sorts of travellers passing through on their way to more interesting places. Mercenaries, Huntsmen, refugees, bandits, all co-mingling in a tenuous kind of truce to satisfy their mutual vices. 

Qrow was leaning up against the side of the dilapidated building, looking just as shady as any of the other characters going in and out, despite his status as a reputable Huntsman. In fact, if Roman and Qrow had been in a line-up together, Roman would’ve bet good money that Qrow would be the first one picked out as a criminal. 

Roman greeted him with a wolfish grin. “This place looks awful!”

“Well, our options are...limited.” Qrow looked him over suspiciously. “What’s put you in such a good mood all of a sudden? Ten minutes ago you looked about ready to murder someone. Is that it? Did you murder someone?”

“No, but there are plenty of hours left in the day.”

“That’s not funny. I’ll be keeping my eye on you, Torchwick, so don’t try anything cute. The same goes for your sister.” He looked suddenly affronted, which probably meant Neo had stuck her tongue out at him. 

“To be perfectly honest, my fine, feathered friend,” said Roman, throwing an arm around Qrow’s shoulders and ushering him inside, “my plans consist of drinking until I pass out. Your boyfriend’s been keeping me up at night.”

Qrow stopped in his tracks, the look on his face almost comical. _“What?”_

Roman chuckled. Perhaps he couldn’t resist antagonizing Qrow just a little. “I’m talking about the nightmares, of course,” he said innocently. “Real doom-and-gloom stuff. I think the guy could benefit from professional help.”

“That’s not—“ Qrow shook off Roman’s arm. “He _told_ you about us?”

“He hardly needed to,” replied Roman breezily. “He _pines_. It’s sad, really.”

“But I— He said if—“ Qrow shook his head, flustered. “Never mind. I really need that drink.”

They laid claim to three empty barstools, Roman situating himself between Qrow and Neo. He flagged down the barkeep. “A bourbon for me, and a vodka tonic for the lady,” he said. 

The barkeep looked Neo over skeptically. “She old enough to drink?”

“Seriously? You’re gonna card her in a place like this?”

But Neo lifted her chin and held out her ID for the barkeep to examine. It was a forgery of course, but not so she could buy alcohol underage. She was twenty years old—well above the legal drinking age. 

“Sorry,” the barkeep mumbled. “Just doing my job.” He fixed their drinks and set them down on the bar. “And for you?” he asked Qrow. 

“Whiskey. Make it a double.”

The barkeep took one look at him and reached for a bottle on the bottom shelf. “Ah ah,” said Roman. “Top shelf. I’m opening a tab.” He slid a hundred Lien card across the bar. The barkeep accepted it with a nod, complying with Roman’s instructions. 

Qrow stared at him, flabbergasted. “You’re...buying my drinks?”

“I don’t drink with cheap alcoholics,” said Roman. “You can be an embarrassment on your own time.”

The barkeep set Qrow’s whiskey in front of him, which silenced any rejoinder he might have made. He eyed the drink suspiciously, as though Roman might have poisoned it somehow without touching it. But his self-control crumbled almost immediately, and he tossed the whiskey back in a couple of gulps. He moaned in a way that made even Roman blush. “Fuck, that’s good stuff.” He slammed the glass down. “Keep ‘em comin’, barkeep.”

“Sure, help yourself,” Roman drawled. He followed suit and tipped his bourbon down his throat. Qrow had the right idea. This wasn’t exactly a social occasion worth savoring. “I’ll switch to whiskey,” he told the barkeep. “Just leave us the bottle.”

Neo side-eyed him as she sipped her vodka tonic, judging him in silence. But could she blame him for wanting to get out of his own head for awhile? 

“I’ve got good news about the recovery efforts at Beacon, but I don’t suppose you’d care to hear it,” Qrow muttered into his drink. 

“Not in the slightest.”

“I just don’t get it,” Qrow growled. “Ozpin’s a good person. Better than good. How did he end up with _you_?”

“I’ll tell you what I don’t get,” said Roman sharply. “You’re acting like this is some great privilege that I don’t deserve. It’s not. If anything, it feels like a punishment.”

“Well, I’m sure he feels the same way.” Qrow’s eyes took on a faraway look as some troubling thought furrowed his brow. “Maybe it’s just bad luck,” he said quietly.

Roman took a gulp of whiskey, and sighed through the burn. “Yeah, maybe.” 

They drank in silence for awhile, each drowning different sorrows. Roman’s mood had soured somewhat, but the alcoholic buzz was starting to feel like a pretty good substitute.At least, until some drunken idiot stumbled into him, causing him to drop his glass so it shattered on the floor. He clenched his jaw as he watched the expensive whiskey spill across the grimy floorboards. Qrow merely smirked over the rim of his glass as he witnessed Roman’s misfortune. 

“Oh, sorry, man,” came a gruff voice from behind him. 

Roman turned around, prepared to give the dumb fuck a piece of his mind, but as soon as he made eye contact, said dumb fuck leaned into his personal space and squinted at him, tilting his head from side to side. “You look f’miliar,” he slurred, his breath laden with alcohol. “Do I know you from s’mwhere?”

Roman hadn’t thought anyone would recognize him this far removed from civilization, but his mugshot _had_ been plastered all over Vale’s main news channels a few months ago. Either way, he didn’t need the attention. He gave the other man a quick once-over to confirm that they’d never met. Worn leather boots and gloves, a poorly concealed dagger at his hip, a leather jacket that was clearly nicer than he could afford, and short stubble dusting his chin that he probably thought made him look rugged. Roman pegged him as a common bandit or a lone highwayman. In either case, a lower class of criminal than he would ever associate with. 

“I don’t think so,” said Roman. “Unless that was a pick-up line, in which case, I suggest you go try it on someone as drunk as yourself.”

Qrow snorted into his drink. But the other man merely looked confused, probably because the alcohol had robbed him of the ability to process complex sentences. “I’m sure I’ve seen y’r face s’mwhere b’fore.”

Neo surreptitiously grabbed her umbrella from where it had been leaning up against the bar, and Roman slowly removed his right glove, flexing his wrist and feeling the spring-loaded mechanism for the dagger concealed up his sleeve. Qrow finally seemed to realize the gravity of the situation, turning to the guy with a hard look. “Listen, pal,” he said, “he says he doesn’t know you. Just let it go.”

“Relax, Qrow,” said Roman. “On second thought, I think we _have_ met somewhere before. What do you say we go someplace more quiet and chat?” he asked the man with a friendly smile. 

“Qrow…” said the man, frowning. He looked over at Qrow in realization. “Qrow Branwen? Must be, you’ve got her eyes,” he mumbled to himself. It was now Roman’s turn to play the bemused spectator as Qrow shifted nervously under the man’s scrutiny. 

“Do I know you?” Qrow asked. 

“Nah, you wouldn’t. You left the tribe b’fore my time.” 

Qrow visibly tensed. Well, this was an interesting development. Roman had wondered if Qrow Branwen was connected to the Branwen tribe in some way, but as a trusted member of Ozpin’s inner circle, he hadn’t thought it very likely. But it seemed he’d just been proven wrong. 

“She said you were seduced by the headmaster at that fancy-ass academy into becoming a Huntsman, all high and mighty like, an’ now you think you’re better’n the rest of us.”

Qrow’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t prey on innocent people. That makes me better than you.”

The tribesman gestured expansively around them. “We’ve ended up in the same damn place. Only _I’m_ comin’ off a big score, this little village to the west, defenses crumbled like a sandcastle.” 

Qrow stood, turning to face the man fully. “That was the tribe?” 

“Yeah, an’ we’ve got the loot to show for it,” the man bragged, oblivious to Qrow’s simmering rage. “What’ve _you_ got—“

Qrow decked the man right in the face, with enough force to send him flying back into the opposite wall with a heavy _thud_. He crumpled to the floor and didn’t get back up. 

“Someone take out the trash,” said Qrow to the small crowd of gawping onlookers, and then returned to his drink as though there had been no interruption. 

Roman gave a low whistle. “Nice right hook.” He relaxed back against the bar, looking at Qrow in a new light. “So, Ozpin’s favorite pet used to lead a life of crime. Ya think the man has a type?”

“ _Used to,_ ” Qrow growled. “And _he’s_ the reason I turned my life around. He opened my eyes to all the  _shit_ that goes on in this world, and he was the first person who believed I could do something to make it _better_ rather than _worse_. So make all the snide remarks about my past that you want to, because I’m not that person anymore.”

“Yeesh, I was joking. Didn’t mean to touch a nerve.” The barkeep had surreptitiously placed a fresh glass on the bar in front of Roman, and Roman poured himself a generous refill. “So, you must be Raven’s brother.”

“You know Raven?” asked Qrow warily.

“We’ve had dealings on occasion. Nice lady.”

Qrow barked a harsh laugh. “Yeah, she’s a piece of work. Still family, though.”

Roman couldn’t imagine abandoning Neo as Qrow had Raven, but then again, knowing what he did of Raven, he could see why Qrow and his sister might not have been the best of pals. They weren’t exactly birds of a feather, so to speak. The thought amused him. “So, can Raven turn into a raven?” 

Roman hadn’t been serious, so Qrow’s simple “Yep” came as a surprise. Qrow searched Roman’s face for something, but what it might have been, and whether or not he found it, Roman couldn’t begin to guess. “You’ll remember all this stuff eventually, I guess,” he said. “Everything Oz knows.”

Roman swirled the whiskey in his glass. “So I’ve been told.” 

“Then I guess it doesn’t hurt to let you in on a few things early.” He lowered his voice, so it wouldn’t carry. “Oz recruited me and Raven when we were students at Beacon. It wasn’t strictly ethical, and Oz wasn’t sure who he could trust, so no one else at the academy knew about it. He gave us a choice, but that’s something Raven seems to have forgotten. She thinks he was manipulating us from the start. So she turned her back on him and went back to the tribe. But I knew we were doing something important, so I stayed by his side. And now, here I am.” He held out his arms expansively.

“So Ozpin _will_ bend the rules, when it suits him,” Roman mused. 

“He does what needs to be done. Often times, that means the things others can’t or won’t do."

Roman rolled his eyes. “So Ozpin knows best, does he?” 

“He’s the _only_ one who knows what’s really going on. What _she’s_ trying to do to this world. And it's bigger than you or me, than politics and wars and kingdoms.”

“Seems like info he might want to share. Since, you know, the fate of humanity is at stake.” 

“The knowledge would just cause a panic,” said Qrow. “Like the shit Cinder’s broadcast has stirred up, but a hundred times worse. Which would make things that much easier for her. In each lifetime, he lets a few of us in on the secret, and we do whatever we can to work against her, until we figure out a way to defeat her for good.” 

Roman raised his glass in a mock toast. “A foolproof plan, really.”

“You don't know the first thing about what we do. You only just switched sides a couple days ago.”

“I’ve only ever been on my own side.”

Qrow laughed bitterly. “I used to think the same way. But behind the curtain, there’s only her side and his side. Once you realize that, the choice is easy. I’d die for Ozpin, and what he’s fighting for. Gods know he’s died for us more times than he can probably count, just so he can keep fighting.”

Roman didn’t deal in absolutes—he simply didn’t believe in them. There was always a grey area in between, and that was where he thrived. Still, he _had_ been used by Salem to advance her agenda, and now it seemed he had no choice but to serve as Ozpin’s instrument in advancing his own. The thought deeply unnerved him. So he changed the subject. 

“You know, for someone who shares such a… _close_ relationship with our mutual acquaintance, I knew surprisingly little about you. I kept tabs on everyone of importance coming and going from the capital, and you were hardly ever there. I had you pegged as a relatively minor player.” 

“I doubt you spent a lot of time birdwatching.” Roman nodded, acknowledging Qrow’s point. Qrow searched his eyes again, and Roman thought he understood why this time. He was looking for some sign that someone else was looking back. “But I…wasn’t there, as often as I wanted to be. I’m…better, at a distance.” He took another swig of whiskey, finishing off his third glass. 

“Now you sound as cryptic as he does.” 

Qrow scoffed. “So there _are_ things Oz hasn’t told you about me.” He sighed, staring into his empty glass. “You oughta know, so you can watch out for it. Your bad luck, running into the one person who would recognize you in this nowhere town? Wasn’t _your_ bad luck. My Semblance…isn’t something I can control. It’s active all the time. I bring misfortune wherever I go, to everyone around me. Friends and enemies alike.” 

“Huh,” said Roman, considering. “Well, I guess I’d rather have no Semblance than a shitty one like that.” 

“Gee, thanks.” Qrow poured himself a fourth glass. 

Roman shrugged. “Just don’t come within a hundred yards of me when I’m gambling, and I can handle the rest.” An idea struck then, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t just the alcohol at work. “…On second thought, in games of chance, the luck has to cut both ways. One player’s bad luck is another player’s boon. I’m willing to bet there are some outcomes you _can_ control. Would you care to try a little experiment with me?”

Qrow squinted at him suspiciously. “Just what do you have in mind?”

~ * ~

“All you have to do is stand there and look pretty,” Roman had told him. 

The bar was full of easy marks—sorry drunks down on their luck, petty criminals looking to double the day’s score, overeager young grifters convinced they couldn’t lose, and more seasoned gamblers who’d learned to accept losing as part of the game. If this worked, it would be like stealing candy from babies. 

Roman had learned to count cards by the age of ten. Learning to fight and steal had kept him and Neo safe and fed, but more than any other skill, learning how to work a gambling table had ultimately gotten him and Neo off the streets. Now, it was a simple trick for Neo to cheat at any game using her Semblance, and Roman simply gambled for pleasure rather than necessity. But he still got a thrill from contriving new ways to swindle poor suckers out of their hard-earned money. 

Roman found an open table at the back and loudly announced that he was starting a game of poker and would stake the first hand of anyone who wanted to play. He was pretty drunk by that point, but he counted cards at night like other people counted sheep. He didn’t need to be sober to win. Nevertheless, he slurred his words more than he otherwise would. It never hurt to let the suckers you were playing think they were playing you. 

The bar’s refuse came scuttling out of the woodwork and crowded around, jockeying for seats at the table. Roman capped the game at ten players including himself, but encouraged the others to stick around—they could always buy in later. He pulled out his deck of cards and started shuffling. Meanwhile, Qrow stood across the table from him, in amongst the other spectators, watching with mild interest while finishing the rest of the whiskey straight from the bottle. Neo stood beside the Huntsman, watching him as much as the game, curious to see how things would play out. Still, Roman got the impression she was humoring him, bemused by his enthusiasm for this new scheme when the pair of them had plenty between them. But if this one worked as he predicted, then the beauty of it would be that it wouldn’t really be cheating at all. He would rely on the luck of the cards like anyone else. 

He forced himself not to count as he dealt the opening hands. This wouldn’t work if he tried to game the system. In fact, he suspected Qrow’s Semblance would foil other players’ attempts at cheating, one way or another. Roman played his cards straight, trusting in his theory that as long as Qrow stood at the other side of the table, luck would be on Roman’s side. And sure enough, while he didn’t finish with a stellar hand, the two pair he laid down at the end of the final round was good enough to take the pot.

“Bad luck, fellas,” said Roman, raking in the pile of Lien. “Who’s up for another round?” 

Qrow watched, transfixed, as the players seated nearest him kept folding or trying to bluff with terrible hands, while Roman continued his winning streak. So as not to attract too much suspicion, Roman would fold when the pot was low, only playing out his hand when the winnings were worth taking. It worked every time. After Roman laid down a straight flush and collected his fourth pot, Qrow nudged Neo in the side and whispered something to her, eyes wide and bright. She rolled her eyes, but smiled nonetheless, enjoying watching her brother work the table just like he used to when they were kids. 

Keeping the game under his control also meant dealing appropriately with players who stepped out of line, which he did when a young man who was trying to cheat with a stack of high cards up his sleeve fumbled the switch, and the ace he’d been trying to swap in fluttered down to the table, landing face-up for all to see. Roman slammed the head of his cane down on top of the card, nearly causing the kid to jump out of his chair. “Cut your losses and walk away,” said Roman. “At this table, you play fair or not at all.”

“Bullshit!” the kid spat, although his voice trembled. “ _You’re_ the one who’s cheating! I bet you’ve got a dozen aces up your sleeve.” 

Roman stood, leaning in over the table to reply, “The only thing I’ve got up my sleeve is a knife, but I’d be happy to let you inspect it more _closely_.” 

Qrow shifted nervously, perhaps considering intervening if the situation escalated. But the kid blanched and backed away from the table, muttering about the game being rigged as he beat a hasty retreat. Another person filled his chair as soon as he was gone, eager to take their chances. But Roman could read the room, and once an accusation had been made, it would be that much more difficult to divert the suspicion of the remaining players. He knew to quit while he was ahead.

He played a few more hands, folding two, and winning the final pot with four of a kind. Then he gracefully bowed out, collecting his cards and his winnings, and bidding the players goodnight. As he left the table, another man took his seat, offering his own deck of cards to keep the game going, oblivious to the fact that they would be playing an entirely different game once Roman was gone. 

Neo joined him by the entrance, holding open the saddlebag for him to dump his winnings into. Qrow followed in her wake, looking somewhat dazed. “I can’t believe that actually _worked_ ,” he slurred. “I actually did something good with my Semblance... Well, not _good_ , but... I _did_ something. That _helped_ someone. That I _meant_ to do.”

Roman clapped him on the shoulder. “You did good.” Qrow gave him a dopey grin, which Roman probably wouldn’t have found adorable if he hadn’t been so drunk himself. “You ever wanna do that again sometime, let me know.” He slipped a five-hundred Lien card into Qrow’s pocket with an answering grin. 

Qrow stared at him for a moment, the gears grinding sluggishly in his mind. Then he tapped the side of Roman’s head with two fingers. “Is Ozpin in there? I wanna tell him I did good.”

“Stop that.” Roman swatted his hand away. “You were being fun and now you’re being annoying.”

“Your face is annoying,” Qrow mumbled sulkily.

Neo shepherded the two drunken men to the inn across the street, where Roman attempted to purchase a room for the night with a portion of his winnings. The innkeeper looked at him like he was an idiot, which he resented, until she said, slowly, “Just to be sure we understand each other, you want a room with four beds. Will a _fourth_ person be joining the _three_ of you?”

“Oh shit.” Roman giggled. “I sure hope not!”

“I’ll just make that two beds and a pull-out, then,” she said in a leading tone. Then, under her breath, “Not that it isn’t tempting to over-charge drunken idiots.”

Neo nodded, nudging her brother out of the way and counting out the money to pay for the room. She accepted the key, and then draped Roman’s arm around her shoulders to help him up the stairs, leaving Qrow to stumble along behind them. As soon as they got to their room, Qrow toppled face-first into one of the beds and began to snore lightly. Roman tossed his hat onto the dresser. Then he looked between the remaining bed and the pull-out couch, and between Neo’s small frame and his own six feet and change. Neo blew out a breath in annoyance and shoved him into the bed. He was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.

He didn’t dream at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Qrow: Let me see what you have.
> 
> Roman: A knife!
> 
> Qrow: NO!
> 
>  
> 
> [A/N: Happy Valentine’s Day!]


	9. Departures

While Roman’s sleep had been blissfully free of horrific nightmares, he awoke to what he was certain was the worst hangover of his life. He groaned and buried his head under the pillow as the early light filtering in through the curtains attempted to needle through his eyelids. He could shut out the light, but there was no hope of shutting out the pain of his splitting headache. “I hate you,” Roman mumbled into the pillow. “So much.”

 _‘What happened?’_ Ozpin murmured groggily. _‘Were we attacked?’_

“...I went drinking with Qrow.” He really should have known better than to pace himself against a depressed alcoholic with the stomach lining of a carrion eater.

_‘Oh, gods.’_

“I only did it so I could get a decent night’s sleep!”

 _‘Shhh. Be quiet.’_ Roman rankled at being shushed like an unruly child, but Ozpin had a point. Loud noises were definitely Not Good. _‘Where is Qrow? I’d like to speak with him.’_

Roman risked lifting a corner of the pillow and cracking one eye open, only to find that the bed across from him was empty. “He the type to leave the morning after?”

_‘Perhaps he had nothing to report... Oh. There he is.’_

Roman’s eyes widened. There was a crow nesting in his hat.

Aches and pains temporarily forgotten, Roman was out of bed and across the room in three strides. He snatched his hat off the dresser and upended it. The bird gave a surprised squawk as it fell, and Qrow hit the floor in an uncoordinated sprawl. “I’m awake!”

“So help me, Qrow, if you shit in my hat I will roast you like a chicken and eat you for breakfast!”

Qrow winced. “Not so loud. Why can’t you be nice and quiet like your sister?” Neo was sitting up in bed, watching the pair of them in amusement. “Creepy, but quiet.”

Roman inspected his hat, but all that Qrow had left behind was a long, black feather. It was a rather handsome feather, actually. He’d been meaning to replace the grey feather in his hat, anyway—it had gotten singed in his fight with Red. So he plucked it out and tucked the crow feather in its place, then put on the hat and turned to examine his reflection in the mirror. The overall effect was subtler, sleeker, a little more sinister. “Not bad,” he muttered.

Qrow struggled to push himself up into a sitting position, blinking up at Roman blearily. "You're using my feather as a fashion accessory?"

"It looks better on me."

_'Torchwick.'_

"Ugh, fine. Oz wants to talk to you." Roman took a mental step back, relinquishing control. It was better than playing the middleman between the two. And he was more than willing to let Ozpin deal with the consequences of his irresponsible night.

Ozpin hissed, clutching his head. "Gods, how much did he drink?"

Qrow grimaced in sympathy. "Almost as much as me, I think."

Ozpin held out a hand to help Qrow up off the floor. Qrow stared at it for a moment before accepting the assistance and letting Ozpin pull him to his feet. "You guys are giving me whiplash," he muttered. "You heard him just threaten to eat me, right?"

Ozpin offered Qrow a gentle smile. "I think he's more bark than bite."

_'Oh, I'll show you bite—'_

"Did you two manage to get along alright on your own?" Ozpin continued, talking over Roman.

"I think so..." said Qrow, scratching his head. "Oh! He figured out a way I can use my Semblance to actually control certain outcomes, rather than just causing chaos.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, see, in games of chance where luck is the determining factor—like cards—I can actually put my finger on the scales and control the luck at the table. Basically, I can pick the winner. Neat, right?”

“Qrow.”

“I’m still thinking about if there are ways to adapt the principle for other scenarios, but just having _some_ control in _some_ situations is progress—“

_“Qrow.”_

“Yeah, Oz?"

Ozpin pinched the bridge of his nose. "Am I to understand," he said slowly, "that you used your Semblance to help Torchwick cheat at cards?"

"Uh...yeah..." Qrow cringed. "That wasn't good, was it?"

Ozpin sighed. "Honestly, I expected much worse. And that _is_ an interesting discovery. Just remember to be careful around him. I'm doing my best with him, but he's not our friend."

"Of course," said Qrow. "Are you alright? You were out for a long time yesterday."

"I'm fine now. Using magic is particularly taxing for me so soon after reincarnation, and dominating the will of another creature requires a great deal of magical energy. I simply overexerted myself. I’m sorry if I alarmed you.”

Qrow crossed his arms, giving Ozpin a tired look. “I was more annoyed than alarmed. I flew like a bat outta hell to get to you from that far away, and then you left me with the mafia siblings.”

A slow, metallic _shing_ echoed from across the room, and both men turned to see that Neo was now perched at the end of the couch, sharpening her sword. She gave them a cheery little wave, and continued with her work. _Shing. Shing. Shing._

Qrow gestured silently to her, illustrating his point. Ozpin looked suitably guilty. “I’ll try not to do that again. Do you have any news from Beacon?”

Roman quickly lost interest as Qrow reported on the organization of Huntsmen into search and rescue teams, various plans for how to destroy the remains of the wyvern and how rebuilding could begin once it was dislodged, and the health and whereabouts of various students, including how half of Team RWBY had apparently scattered to the wind.

 _‘I heard yesterday that you recruited him while he was still a student,’_ mused Roman while Qrow rattled on. _‘Actually, ‘seduced’ was a word that got thrown around.’_

Ozpin cleared his throat and asked after Ruby’s health. “She’s doing better,” said Qrow. “She’s started talking in her sleep like she sometimes does. I think she’ll be waking up soon.”

_‘Just how many rules did you break for him, I wonder.’_

_“_ I told Tai to message me the moment she does.”

_‘Well? Was young Mr. Branwen hot for teacher?’_

Ozpin coughed loudly.

“You okay, Oz? You’re looking kind of flushed.”

“I’m fine,” answered Ozpin. “Torchwick is simply making a nuisance of himself.”

“What’s he saying?”

“Nothing of import.”

Qrow sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Well, I should be heading back. Can’t let Tai get all the credit when she wakes up.”

“Gods forbid,” said Ozpin with a smile.

Qrow walked over and opened the window, then looked back at Ozpin like it hurt more each time he had to leave. “I’ll see you again soon.” He flew off without waiting for a response.

Ozpin watched out the window as Qrow’s silhouette dwindled to a black dot against the blue sky. “As disinclined as I am to dignify your tactless prying with a response,” he muttered under his breath, “our relationship was strictly platonic while he was my student.”

 _‘Huh,’_ said Roman. _‘I think I can tell when you’re lying, too.’_

Ozpin gripped the windowsill tightly, and Roman felt his annoyance flare into anger. But Neo, with excellent sense of timing, chose that moment to appear by his side with a glass of ice water. “Oh. Thank you,” said Ozpin, reaching for the glass.

Neo pulled it back, shaking her head.

“It’s not for me,” he interpreted. She nodded. “Very well,” he sighed. “Although how you deal with him constantly, I simply cannot fathom.” He turned over control to Roman without another word.

Roman braced himself against the windowsill, still somewhat unsteady on his feet. He accepted the glass of water and downed it in a few large gulps. “Thanks, I needed that.”

She patted him on the back as though he were the younger sibling who needed taking care of.

He blew out a breath that fluttered his bangs. “Let’s see what this hick town’s got in the way of shopping.”

~ * ~

They purchased the supplies they needed for the long journey ahead, Roman found a smuggler off whom he bought some halfway decent Vacuese cigars, and Neo made a beeline for the town's little ice cream shop.

She pointed to the strawberry flavor, so Roman ordered her a cone. As he was about to pay, Ozpin remarked off-handedly, _'They have chocolate.'_

Roman rolled his eyes. "And a scoop of chocolate."

The man behind the counter handed him the two ice cream cones, and he gave Neo hers and kept the other. " _Your_ sweet tooth better not be the reason _I_ get cavities," he muttered as they walked away.

 _'I haven't had a cavity in centuries,'_ Ozpin hummed contentedly.

They strolled down the main street, licking their ice creams and soaking in what would be their last taste of life in a settlement of any significant size for quite some time. "There anything else we need?" Roman asked.

_'I believe I saw a dust shop on the way in.'_

Roman grinned. "Now we're talking."

They made their way to the dust shop near the town gate. It was a small, sparsely stocked establishment, but they didn't need anything fancy. Roman sauntered up to the shopkeeper and asked to see his supply of red dust crystals. He was a small, middle-aged man with spectacles as thick as beer bottles. "Of course, sir," he said, shuffling down to the other end of the counter to rummage in the drawers below the display case. Roman leaned nonchalantly against the counter, pocketing a couple of yellow dust crystals from the display by the register as he did so.

_'I hope you intend to pay for those.'_

"It's called the five-finger discount," Roman muttered.

_'Pay for them or put them back.'_

"Fine," Roman hissed, setting the crystals back in their display before Oz could make him do so. He didn't need them, wasn't even really sure how he would use them—they had simply caught his eye. "But I hope you know how _wrong_ it'll feel, walking out of here with everything on the receipt."

_'My heart bleeds for you.'_

The shopkeep returned with a tray of red crystals, which Roman examined for purity and shade. He picked out ten of the highest quality, and had the shopkeep pack all the crystals up in a case. "See anything you like?" he asked Neo.

Neo skipped over carrying a few pouches of dust powder which she could lace into her illusions. Roman added them to his purchase and paid in full while trying not to think too much about it.

As they left the store and approached the town gate, one of the guards waved them over, and Roman felt irrationally on-edge, since for once, he _hadn't_ stolen anything. "Mr. Goodwitch," said the guard, "There is a horse for you hitched just outside the gate."

He led them through the gate, and gestured to where a hardy black stallion was hitched to a post, pawing at the dirt at the base of the wall. Roman tipped his hat in thanks, and approached the beast with caution. "I think I'll call you Crow," he told the horse.

_'We're not calling the horse Qrow.'_

"No, _Crow_. With a 'C'."

_'Still no.'_

"It's a _black_ horse, Oz. I thought you were all for color-coordinated naming schemes. And if it just so _happens_ to remind you of Qrow-with-a-'Q', then _maybe_ you'll be less inclined to _run it into the ground_ like you did the last one."

Ozpin gave a beleaguered sigh. _'If Qrow finds out, he's going to throw something at us, and it might be his weapon.'_

"He'll have to be sober enough to aim straight. I'm willing to take those odds."

 _'Shall I?'_ Ozpin asked, preparing to take over.

But Roman shook his head. "I think I've got the hang of it now." He freed the reins from the post and kept hold of them as he stepped up in the stirrup and swung his opposite leg over the horse's back. Neo vaulted up to land lightly behind him. With a kick to the horse's sides and a light flick of the reins, he set the horse cantering down the road, quickly leaving the little town behind them. He felt at ease in the saddle, as though he'd been riding horseback for years. Muscle memory came first, Ozpin had said.

Only after they had ridden several miles did Neo tap Roman on the shoulder, and drop two yellow dust crystals into his hand. Roman broke into surprised laughter. "Well done, kid!"

_'Oh, for fuck's sake.'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How to rob a dust shop when your soul ghost doesn’t want you to: 
> 
> 1\. Try to steal some shit, then get scolded and told to put it back.
> 
> 2\. Have a sister who's your partner in crime and a 100% ride or die bitch.
> 
> 3\. ?????
> 
> 4\. Profit.


	10. Sibling Rivalry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter while listening to this song: https://youtu.be/_DjCoV2yhVU

They stopped for lunch in a broad, grassy clearing. And after their little makeshift picnic, Ozpin said it was time to begin their training in earnest. Despite Roman’s irritation at being told what he was going to do and when, he was eager to find out what the famed Huntsman academy headmaster might be able to teach him. He knew he would have to be a quick study if he hoped to make it out of Ozpin’s war alive.

‘ _First_ _things_ _first_. _You’ll_ _need_ _to_ _work_ _on_ _maintaining_ _the_ _concentration_ _necessary_ _to_ _sustaining_ _a_ _defensive_ _Aura_. _I’ll_ _require_ _Ms_. _Neo’s_ _assistance_ _for_ _this_ _lesson_.’

“I think he wants us to fight,” Roman told his sister, walking to the center of the clearing. Neo grabbed her umbrella and trotted after him with a skip in her step. The two of them sparred often, and Neo could lay him out nine times out of ten. She was the better fighter, of that he was under no illusion. But if the purpose of this exercise was to see how well he could take a beating, then it was a perfect match.

In accordance with Ozpin’s instructions, brother and sister assumed fighting stances about six yards apart, Roman with his cane, Neo with her umbrella.

‘ _It_ _might_ _be_ _helpful_ _to_ _think_ _of_ _your_ _Aura_ _as_ _behaving_ _like_ _water_ ,’ said Ozpin serenely. ‘ _You_ _can_ _draw_ _it_ _up_ _from_ _deep_ _within_ _as_ _you_ _would_ _water_ _in_ _a_ _well_ , _but_ _its_ _natural_ _tendency_ _is_ _to_ _sink_ _back_ _down_ , _like_ _rain_ _sinks_ _into_ _the_ _ground_. _You_ _must_ _draw_ _up_ _enough_ _to_ _protect_ _yourself_ , _and_ _keep_ _it_ _at_ _the_ _ready_ , _just_ _beneath_ _the_ _surface_. _If_ _you_ _do_ _this_ _successfully_ , _your_ _Aura_ _will_ _protect_ _you_ _better_ _than_ _any_ _suit_ _of_ _armor_. _But_ _you_ _must_ _not_ _allow_ _any_ _distraction_ _to_ _break_ _your_ _concentration_. _No_ _matter_ _what_ _she_ _throws_ _at_ _you_ , _you'll_ _have_ _to_ _stay_ _focused_ _on_ _keeping_ _your_ _Aura_ _engaged_.’

Roman felt the energy at his core stir and respond to his summons, albeit somewhat sluggishly at first. But soon enough, it started tingling under his skin, crackling behind his teeth, tinting his vision the reddish-orange of a dying flame.

‘ _Not_ _too_ _much_ , _or_ _you’ll_ _deplete_ _your_ _reserve_ _before_ _the_ _fight is finished._ ’ Roman let some of the energy subside, until he felt it mostly as heat in his blood. _‘Very good. Whenever you’re ready.’_

Roman locked eyes with Neo, and gave a slight nod. In a blur, she closed the distance between them and brought her umbrella down with more force than anyone would suspect a girl of her size to be capable of generating. Roman raised his cane just in time to block her downward strike, but she used the point of contact as well as her own momentum to vault over his shoulders. He kicked back, catching her in the stomach and sending her flying through the air, but she opened her umbrella and landed lightly on her feet. He barely had time to swing his cane around to deflect her next attack. She was faster than him, but he knew her well enough to anticipate what she would do next—it was the only way he could keep up with her. 

He managed to hook her ankle with the handle of his cane as she attempted to dance back out of striking distance, but it was almost impossible to unbalance her. When he yanked her backward, she simply did a full flip in midair, and landed back on her feet, out of range of any counterattack. Well, _almost_ any counterattack. Roman flipped his cane around and shot her in the back.

Of course, she could anticipate his moves as well. The smoke rolled off her open umbrella, behind which she was completely unscathed. She shot him a dirty look as she snapped her umbrella shut.

Roman laughed nervously. “Love you, sis.”

She rushed him head-on, and he fired again, shattering the illusion. He spun around not a second too soon, cane clashing with umbrella as he blocked Neo’s attack from behind.

 _‘She does actually have to_ hit _you at some point,’_ Ozpin reminded him.

“Oh, she will,” said Roman. “We’re just warming up.”

They broke into a rapid-fire exchange of blows, each parrying and countering the other’s attacks almost like two fencers in a sword fight. Neo danced circles around him, but he kept her from getting too close. With her acrobatics and her Semblance, however, she was difficult to keep track of. He shattered illusion after illusion that she produced to distract him, keeping him guessing as to where the next attack would come from. After a little while, he stopped wasting his effort on destroying the illusions, instead using them as indicators of where she was not. That was his first and final mistake.

Half a dozen Neos surrounded him, and when he turned his back on one, the real Neo watching him from behind it shattered it with a powerful kick, sending Roman pitching forward into the dirt. He’d been caught by surprise, but Ozpin’s critical spectatorship had served as a constant reminder to stay focused on the lesson lest he get an earful about it afterward. His Aura crackled around him, absorbing the damage, but little if any of the pain. He rolled over onto his back to find the tip of Neo’s umbrella poised just beneath his chin.

He tucked his hands behind his head, lounging back in the grass. “You win.”

She gave him a big smile, although it was a little ambiguous whether she was happy for him because he’d successfully used his Aura, or excited by the realization that now, she could hit him harder before she broke something.

She flipped her umbrella around and offered him the handle to help him to his feet. So naturally, he opened the umbrella in her face and swept his leg around, knocking her feet out from under her. She landed on her ass with a quiet gasp of surprise.

“Just giving you a little motivation,” he said, twirling her umbrella over his shoulder.

She punched him so hard in the ribs his Aura lit up again. He doubled over, half from pain, half from laughter. “That’s not so hard,” he chuckled breathlessly. “I thought this was supposed to be a challenge, Professor.”

 _‘Don’t get cocky. The real challenge is maintaining it. If you manage to do so for another bout,_ then _I’m prepared to be impressed.’_

Roman smirked. “Keep it up for another round ‘til you’re satisfied. Got it.”

 _‘Don’t make me make you do something you’ll regret,’_ Ozpin deadpanned _._

Roman knew better than to keep running his smart mouth in the face of a credible threat. He and Neo picked themselves up off the ground, dusted off their clothes, and squared off again.

Neo looked much more eager to get to the point of Ozpin’s exercise this time. And Roman, while not ashamed to lose to his little sister _per se_ , was a little less blasé about the prospect of getting taken down twice in a row with running commentary from the peanut gallery. And he wasn’t exactly looking forward to the consequences of his earlier provocation. Neo would be much less reticent to dish out exactly what he deserved if it also happened to be “for his own good.” Needless to say, they would both be taking this match a little more seriously than the last.

Neo dipped into a graceful bow, and Roman nearly returned the courtesy instinctively, before he realized with a jolt that the fight had already begun. He flipped his cane up and shot through the illusion, eyes darting around to find where the real Neo had gone.

_‘How can you tell the illusions from the real thing?’_

“Watch her eyes,” muttered Roman, turning in a slow circle.

A shadow passed over the grass at his feet, and he almost dismissed it as a hawk circling overhead. But an uneasy feeling made him look up. Neo’s umbrella briefly blotted out the sun, before she snapped it shut and dropped down through the air. Roman hissed as the sunlight temporarily blinded him, but he rolled out of the way just before her umbrella plunged into the ground where he’d been standing. Seeing spots, he swiped his bangs to the other side as he rose to his feet, and swung his cane. Neo backflipped over it, and came up swinging herself. Roman moved to block with his cane, and the illusion shattered against it, the shards raining down on him and slicing across his cheek, causing his Aura to crackle across his skin. The real Neo came at him from the side, and he had to leap back to avoid the sweep of her umbrella.

_‘Oh, I see. In the illusions, her eyes switch colors. Almost like a mirror image.’_

“That’s the only difference.” Roman fired his grappling hook, catching Neo’s wrist and pulling her in so she couldn’t disappear behind another illusion. She stumbled forward, but caught herself, and then yanked back. Roman’s cane slipped from his grasp, and she flung it away.

She advanced on him, and he thought the fight was as good as over. Until he remembered he had another weapon. He reached behind him and unclipped Ozpin’s cane from his belt loops, extending it with a flick of the lever. He lunged at her before she reached him, striking out with the cane and whacking her hard across the shins. Her Aura sparked down her legs as she leapt back and retreated a few limping steps.

He pressed his advantage, keeping her on her back foot as he spun and swung and struck with the new weapon. If felt right, somehow, in his hand, which in turn felt very wrong. But Roman didn’t dwell on that just now. Ozpin’s cane was lighter, more streamlined than his, so his attacks were a little faster. He drove Neo back with one goal in mind: retrieving his cane.

It didn’t take her long to adjust to the new rhythm of his attacks, and she lashed out as he was preparing to strike. He rolled to the side instead, narrowly avoiding an umbrella to the face. But he ended up only a few feet from where his cane had landed. As Neo launched herself at him, he kicked the cane up into his free hand, and brought both canes up in an X to block her attack. The impact was jarring, but he had her right where he wanted her. Before she could draw back, he twisted around, her weapon caught between his, and disarmed her, flinging her umbrella away. Without missing a beat, he swung his cane around, stopping it just over her heart, at point-blank range.

“I think I win this one, kid,” he said.

She refused to meet his eyes, fists clenched in frustration, her small body trembling slightly. She wasn’t used to losing. 

Then he felt a tap on his shoulder, and he turned, cold realization settling in. There was Neo—the _real_ Neo—her blade leveled beside his throat. Her lips quirked into a slight smile. _Care to re-evaluate, brother?_

Ozpin chuckled delightedly. _‘Oh, she’s_ good.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was at that moment Roman knew: he fucked up.
> 
>  
> 
> [A/N: Neo’s eyes do switch colors at certain times when she’s fighting, but I haven’s specifically checked each scene to confirm if it really corresponds to her illusions. I just liked the idea and went with it.]


	11. What's past is prologue

Their training sessions became a daily routine. Whenever they stopped somewhere with enough open space, which, since they were trekking through the middle of nowhere, was pretty damn often, Ozpin would begin another combat lesson. Sometimes, he would instruct Roman alone, running him through a series of training exercises to improve his form; sometimes, he’d recruit Neo as his “assistant” in sparring matches. And every Grimm they encountered along the way was a “learning opportunity.” 

The professor was a harsh taskmaster, but Roman couldn’t deny that he was improving more quickly than he ever had before. Although he couldn’t be sure how much of it was due to the training exercises themselves, and how much was because he was instinctively fighting a little more like Ozpin every day. He refused to practice with Ozpin’s cane, unnerved by how familiar it had felt to wield it for the first time in that sparring match with Neo. Ozpin didn’t comment on it, but sometimes Roman got the strangest sense of déjà vu, as though he’d experienced the exact same reluctance before, many many years ago. He had déjà vu a lot these days. He supposed it came with the territory of all this past lives bullshit. 

Although it wasn’t déjà vu that made Ozpin’s comment of, _‘I don’t recall this road having a fork in it’_ sound familiar. Roman had heard a lot of variations of _‘There used to be a bridge here,’ ‘This village must be new,’_ and _‘I could have sworn there was a shortcut through these woods’_ over the past few days.

Roman brought the horse to a halt. “When was the last time you made this trip?” 

_‘It was shortly before the war, I think.’_

“ _The_ war? The _Great War_?” Roman demanded.

_‘Yes, that’s the one.’_ Roman pulled out his scroll and began typing a new message to Qrow. _‘What are you doing?’_

“Your directions are about a _hundred years_ out of date. I’m telling Qrow to bring a map the next time he drops by.”

_‘Don’t bother him with something so trivial. I_ know _the way.’_

Qrow’s response was almost immediate: _You lost again?_

“You were saying?”

_‘I led him astray_ once _,_ ten _years ago, and he_ still _holds it against me,’_ Ozpin grumbled.

“Not that you don’t have my complete confidence and undying trust,” said Roman sarcastically, “but I think we should camp here for the night.” He dismounted and held out a hand to help Neo down, not bothering to wait for a reply from Ozpin. Qrow had said it plainly enough: if Roman tried to do anything Ozpin didn’t like, Ozpin could stop him. So Roman wouldn’t ask Ozpin’s permission for anything. Just because he was playing host to Ozpin’s soul, didn’t mean he had to roll out the red carpet for the guy. They may have to work together, but Ozpin was an unwelcome guest, and Roman wouldn’t let him forget it. 

Ozpin didn’t argue. Roman sensed he was turning over a question in his mind—probably which road was the right one. He could sleep on it, and if they were lucky, maybe their little carrier crow would show up in the morning with a map. 

Roman led the horse off the path to a little, sheltered clearing, where he hitched the beast to a tree and left it to graze. Neo began rolling out the bedrolls and setting up camp, while he wandered off into the trees to collect firewood. He lit a cigar, enjoying the quiet stroll through the twilight forest. He was a city guy at heart, but organized crime was a full-time job, and sometimes it was nice to get away from it all and just breathe. 

He'd almost forgotten that he would never again have a moment of peace and quiet to himself. _‘You’re really going to smoke with arms full of kindling?’_

Roman hissed out a smoky sigh. “You worry too much, Oz. You’re gonna give me ulcers.” 

_‘I’d be more worried about respiratory failure, if I were you.’_

Roman snorted. “‘If I were you.’ That’s an odd turn of phrase, these days.”

Ozpin hummed in agreement. _‘At any rate, I think being concerned about you setting yourself on fire in this scenario is perfectly reasonable. Trust me, it’s not a good way to go.’_

“I happen to like playing with fire.” 

_‘Is that what you thought when you met Cinder?’_

Roman’s eyebrows shot up. “Touché. But _you_ still need to loosen up. Earlier, I’m pretty sure you were worrying about Qrow getting eaten by a cat.” 

_‘It could happen,’_ Ozpin muttered.

“See, this is why you have nightmares.” In truth, Ozpin’s nightmares had gotten much better over the past few days, but sometimes, Roman still woke gasping. 

_‘_ You _are the reason I have nightmares, Torchwick. Or at least, the reason they have been this bad.’_

Roman stopped walking. “Uh, I’m flattered, Oz, but I’m not _that_ scary.”

_‘I’m not afraid of_ you _. I’m afraid of what you might do. You’re a wildcard, and even with our bond, I cannot claim to know your mind. What I worry about, above all else, is that I will fail—because of you.’_

“How would that even be possible?” Roman asked, hoping he sounded as though he were simply humoring Ozpin, rather than asking out of genuine interest. “You can make me do whatever the fuck you want.”

‘ _I can. But even the slightest resistance or hindrance from you at a critical moment when we need to be working together seamlessly could make all the difference. It is imperative that we develop a cooperative working relationship, but I’ll admit, I see no incentive for you to do so. Knowledge, power, anything I can offer you is ultimately self-serving, as I’m sure you’ve worked out on your own.’_

Roman immediately recognized this as the opportunity he’d been waiting for. A chance to assuage Ozpin’s fears and suspicions, to gain a little of his trust. But how to go about it without lying? He leaned back against a tree and blew smoke at the dusky sky. “You’re worried about getting something you’ve already got. We’ve had a working relationship for years, Oz. You just didn’t realize it.”

_‘What are you talking about?’_

“Before I took over Vale’s criminal underworld, it was chaos and carnage. Turf wars between rival gangs had gotten out of control, and crime rates were through the roof. People were starting to panic. I’m sure you remember. You made a speech about it, even started a Huntsman task force to assist the police. But it wasn’t ‘good old-fashioned police work’ that brought the crime epidemic to an end. That was yours truly, taking over all the warring factions, bringing them all under my control, until nobody ran a job in Vale without my say-so." 

Roman chuckled, smoke curling from his lips. "You could say I put the ‘organized’ back in organized crime. Casualties and collateral damage are inefficient and draw too much attention. Under my watch, the reported crime rate in Vale plummeted, because crime became all but invisible. So everyone felt they could sleep nice and cosy in their beds again at night. While you and your Huntsmen kept the wolves from the gates, I kept the ones already inside from tearing the place apart. We both know you ran that city from the top down, but I ran it from the bottom up. I’d call that a cooperative working relationship, wouldn’t you?”

_‘You’re saying that your particular brand of criminal activity...actually made Vale safer?’_ asked Ozpin skeptically. 

“Come on, Oz, you’re not naive. You can’t get rid of crime. But you _can_ manage it. Well, _I_ can.”

_‘It’s an interesting theory,’_ Ozpin allowed.

“You’d know if I were lying,” said Roman. “Vale was my home, too, after all.”

_‘Then why conspire to destroy it?’_

Roman grimaced. “Home’s a complicated notion. There were a lot of times, years ago, when I wanted nothing more than to watch that city burn. But in all honesty, if I’d known things were going to play out the way they did the night Cinder first showed up at my door, I woulda slammed it in her face.”

_‘I doubt that would have gone well for you,’_ said Ozpin, a touch of dark humor in his tone.

Roman huffed a laugh. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I don’t think that girl’s ever heard the word ‘no.’ It was always, ‘Roman, steal the city’s entire supply of dust,’ and ‘Roman, organize an underground Faunus rebellion,’ and ‘Roman, drive a fucking train through a fucking wall with a thousand fucking Grimm on your ass.’ And I went along with it every time.”

_‘You didn’t feel you had a choice,’_ Ozpin inferred.

“I had a choice,” said Roman. “It was which side of Cinder's wrath to put myself and my sister on.”

They lapsed into silence after that, and Roman finished his walk, filling his arms with dry sticks until he couldn’t carry any more. It was the kind of tense silence that meant he’d given Ozpin a lot to think about. 

He returned to camp to find a dead rabbit on his bedroll, Neo lounging back on hers looking like a proud cat presenting him with a trophy. It took him a moment to get past his dumb shock and deep confusion and remember that they were roughing it in the woods, and that hunting for their food was wiser than eating through all their supplies. “You know how to skin and cook that?” he asked, taking some of the firewood to build a fire in the little area Neo had cleared, and leaving the rest to add to it later. He dropped the butt of his cigar into the kindling, the flames spreading and slowly setting the whole thing ablaze.

Neo shrugged, looking at him expectantly. _You were the farm boy._

Roman picked up the dead rabbit by the ears, and flicked his dagger into his palm. “I’ll give it a shot, but it’s been twenty years since I’ve done this kinda thing,” Roman warned her. 

_‘Why don’t I do it?’_ Ozpin suggested. 

“Just, out of curiosity. What _don’t_ you know how to do?” 

_‘I’ve had a lot of time to acquire a broad skillset.’_

“Alright,” Roman sighed. “Have at it.” 

Ozpin took control and butchered the rabbit in a few clean, easy strokes of the knife. He then constructed a makeshift spit with some of the sticks Roman had gathered. “May I borrow your sword?” he asked Neo.

She handed it over reluctantly, but Roman was surprised that she gave it to him at all. She placed too much trust in Ozpin already. Was it just because he wore Roman’s face? Neo was no fool, and she knew better than most that appearances were often deceiving. So what was it about Ozpin that made her feel she could lower her guard like that? The simple fact that he hadn’t harmed her _yet_? Ozpin had said himself that he felt outnumbered in Roman and Neo’s company, and Neo was the one obvious means by which Roman could work against him independent from his influence. If he suspected Neo of conspiring against him with Roman, she could easily become more of a liability than an asset to him. In that case, he might very well decide to eliminate the liability.

Roman remained on-edge as Ozpin accepted the sword, turning it over in his hands to admire the craftsmanship of the incredibly thin yet resilient blade. Then, in one swift motion, he skewered the rabbit carcass on it. He rested the spit over the fire, turning the sword slowly so the meat would cook evenly. “And you accuse _me_ of worrying too much,” he muttered under his breath.

_‘I’m her brother; it’s my job,’_ Roman responded tersely. 

“Your fondness for her is...infectious,” Ozpin murmured. “It is not hard for me to imagine her as family. Eventually, I will come to consider her as such.” He looked up at Neo across the fire, busy unbuttoning her boots. “I’ve no desire to do her harm.”

Ozpin was telling the truth. But he hadn’t said he _wouldn’t_ hurt her if he felt he had to. Roman wasn’t about to let his guard down, especially if Neo had chosen to do just that. But he didn’t mind Ozpin thinking he’d been reassured. He put on a joking tone when he said, _‘Well, shit, Oz. Does that mean I’m gonna start swooning whenever Qrow makes an appearance?’_

His cheeks grew warm, but it could have been from the fire. “You needn’t worry about it. Qrow knows that as a matter of principle, not to mention ethics, I do not continue romantic relationships beyond a single lifetime. Doing so was one of the worst mistakes I ever made, and I only had to make it once.”

_‘You sure Qrow got that memo? ‘Cause sometimes he still looks at you—and, incidentally,_ me _—like he wants to have you up against the nearest wall.’_

Heat spread across his face. Oz was definitely blushing. “I’m sure it’s hard for him,” he said stiffly. “But this won’t be the hardest thing I’ve asked of him.”

_‘It’s just an interesting place to draw the line is all,’_ Roman drawled. _‘You’re perfectly willing to put my life on the line in this foolhardy plan of yours, but gods forbid I lay a finger on your boyfriend.’_

Ozpin sighed. “Of course you would see ulterior motives in my efforts to be fair to you. Let me put this in terms you’re more familiar with: I will not compromise on my objective. But I am prepared to make other sacrifices to make this arrangement work. I am willing to negotiate with you.”

~ * ~

Ozpin returned control to Roman once he’d determined the rabbit to be properly cooked, and Roman ate supper with his sister in companionable silence. Only once they’d finished, and the fire was burning low, did Roman finally ask, “What do you really think of Ozpin?”

Neo pressed her lips into a thin line as she pulled out her notepad and scribbled something down. She tore out the page and handed it to Roman. There was just one word written on it: _Bastard._

Ozpin’s sigh echoed faintly in Roman’s mind. Roman smiled. “But...?” he coaxed.

Neo motioned for the paper back, so he returned it. She scribbled another word on it, then handed it back:  _Predictable bastard._

_‘Predictable? No one has called me_ that _in a while.’_

Roman considered her assessment. “We know he’s logical and we know what he wants, therefore, we know what he’s likely to do?”

Neo gave a half-nod. _More or less._

“Normally, I’d agree with you. But he’s different from the types we usually deal with. He’s fighting for a righteous cause, and he thinks that makes him one of the good guys. And in my experience, ‘good’ people do the damndest things. They're the ones you've really gotta watch out for.”

~ * ~

Roman lay awake listening to the sounds of the forest long after the fire had died, and Neo had gone to sleep. He wasn’t entirely sure whether it was Ozpin’s restlessness or his own that was keeping him awake.

“You still figuring out which road to take?” he mumbled sleepily.

_‘I have a theory about why you have yet to discover your Semblance,’_ said Ozpin, unexpectedly. 

The encroaching fog of sleep lifted all at once, and Roman was left wide awake. “I’m all ears,” he said.

_‘Would I be correct in inferring that you experienced significant childhood trauma?’_

Roman’s hopes for this being a productive conversation fell, and he lounged back on his bedroll with a disappointed sigh. “I don’t see how that’s relevant. Lots of people have shitty childhoods. I’m fine now. Well, I was until you came along.”

_‘There is a specific thread that I am trying to follow here...’_ Ozpin trailed off, and then, out of the blue, random flashes of Roman’s early memories of his time on the family farm began to play out in his mind, unbidden. He was three years old, feeding chickens, and then he was six, learning from his father how to swing the axe down _just so_ , so the bird wouldn’t suffer. He was five, helping his mother milk the cows, and then he was seven, riding the farm horse through the field for the first time, the wind in his hair, feeling completely and utterly free. That day, he had only been vaguely aware of his parents watching him from the front porch, his father’s arm around his mother’s shoulders, and his mother’s arms clasped around her swollen belly. 

“Hey, hey! Stop rummaging around!” Roman hissed. 

_‘You said you were an open book. I’m merely turning the pages.’_

“Just tell me what you’re looking for,” Roman grit out. 

_‘The night you keep remembering, and trying to forget. The cries, and the scratching...’_

The memory was triggered immediately, and vividly. His mother in her bed, screaming as his father held her hand well into the night. Roman watching, huddled in the far corner of the room, scared because his mother was in such pain, and his father was trying not to let his worries get the better of him and failing. Pain, worry, fear. Everyone who lived on a remote farm knew how dangerous childbirth could be, and not just because doctors were hard to come by. It was a gamble with the gods.

A howl arose from somewhere off in the distance, and then another, and another. His mother’s screams rose with them, drowning them out. Finally, she stopped screaming, and an infant’s cries filled the room, hesitant at first, and then breaking into an all-out wail. She held her baby girl only for a moment before a cacophony arose from the stables outside—sheep and goats bleating, chickens screaming, the horse whinnying. It didn’t last more than a few seconds before the sounds were cut short, one by one. Then came the scratching at the front door. Long, deep scratches, splintering the wood, accompanied by low, rumbling growls. 

His father swept the infant from his mother’s arms, and she was too weak to do anything but sob. He placed a kiss on the child’s forehead, swaddled her in a blanket, and then thrust her into Roman’s arms. He took up the shotgun from where it had been leaning against the doorframe. “Go to the back door,” he told Roman. “When you hear the gun, you take your sister and run, and don’t stop until you get to the city. Do you understand me?” Roman nodded, tears streaming down his cheeks. His father took hold of his arm and pulled him toward the door, only allowing him time for one backward glance at his mother before he was swept from the room. When they reached the back door, his father knelt down, sweeping Roman’s bangs from his face with a trembling hand and looking him in the eyes. “Be fearless,” he said. Then his father had stood, turning his back on Roman and marching off down the hall toward the snarling and scratching. His father was no Huntsman. Roman knew his only intention was to buy time. 

Roman heard the first shotgun blast a minute later, and he took off running as fast as his legs would carry him, out of the house and across the field. By the time he heard the second, he’d reached the dirt road winding around the farm, the one he knew would take him to the city if he followed it far enough. But the baby wouldn’t stop crying, and already, more howls were rising from amidst the trees. They were going to hear, they were going to chase him down and tear him apart. He yanked off his scarf as he ran, and without giving it a second thought, wrapped it tightly around his newborn sister’s face, covering her mouth to muffle her cries. He ran through the night, pausing only to catch his breath. By morning, he could see the skyline of the capital in the distance. His sister had long since stopped crying. It almost seemed as though she’d understood somehow, that if she made noise, they would die. Little did Roman know, she would never utter another sound again. 

He arrived in the city knowing no one, with no skills that would be useful in his new environment, and an infant child in his care, while he was still little more than a child himself. They slept on the streets. It didn’t take Roman long to realize that if he wanted food, he would have to steal it. He didn’t know the first thing about caring for a baby—he did his best to get his hands on things she could eat, but she would never grow properly. They lived that way for years, fighting to survive in the gutter with the rest of the city’s garbage. Until one day, when three kids not much older than Roman at the time, happened to stumble into the alley he and his sister were sleeping in, looking to score drugs. They flashed hundred-Lien cards at him and told him they wanted “the good stuff.” He stared at the money, seeing so much more than colored plastic, and saying nothing. “Eh, they’re just a couplea street rats,” one of the kids sneered, spitting at Roman. Then his gaze shifted to the little girl huddled against Roman’s side. When he grinned, Roman saw beowolves’ teeth. “The East Street gang pays big for girls with no one left to miss ‘em.” 

As the pack of predators closed in, his father’s last words echoed in his head: _Be fearless_. Roman picked up a length of lead pipe lying under the dumpster beside him, and before the first boy knew what had hit him, his teeth were skittering across the grimy cobblestones. Roman took down the other two before they could even process what had happened to their friend, painting the alley with their blood. He might have killed them. He didn’t bother to check. Instead, he took their wallets, then took his sister’s hand. In his other hand, he gripped the lead pipe, still dripping blood. The two of them walked out of that alley, and never looked back. 

The memories slowly faded as Roman returned to his present surroundings—the sounds of the forest around him, the light of the stars and moon above, the sight of his sister sleeping peacefully nearby. 

“Was that what you wanted to see?” he asked. 

_‘Yes.’_

“Good. Because if you’re serious about negotiating, then the first of my terms is that you never fucking do that again.” 

_‘Very well,’_ said Ozpin. 

Roman was no longer interested in Ozpin’s pet theory. There was nothing in his past that explained why his Semblance had eluded him all these years. Ever since the day he’d gotten his first taste of bloodshed, nothing had held him back from taking whatever it was he needed or wanted. He wasn’t damaged. He was stronger for all he'd been through. He lived life by the philosophy that whatever didn't kill him had better fucking run.

Eventually, he drifted off to sleep gazing up at the broken moon, with the strangest feeling that he’d once seen it whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ozpin, adjusting his glasses and jotting down notes on a clipboard: So, tell me about your childhood, Roman.
> 
> Roman, lying on a couch: I almost didn't survive it.
> 
> Ozpin: And how does that make you feel?
> 
> Roman: Like doing murder?
> 
> Ozpin: Do you see how that's problematic?
> 
> Roman: You said there are no problems, only opportunities for improvement. So what you're really saying is, I can do murder better.
> 
> Ozpin: no tHAT IS NOT WHAT I SAID.


	12. Team Building

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Made another playlist for this fic, this time for the whole team! https://8tracks.com/electricangels/troublemakers
> 
> And Tumblr user givemeahug made some fantabulous fanart for this chapter! https://givemeahug.tumblr.com/post/186397715517

Ozpin still wasn’t sure which road was the right one by the next morning. Even the horse seemed impatient, snorting and pawing at the dirt while its riders continued to do fuck all but debate the two paths before them. 

Neo pointed to the right arm of the fork. 

“That _is_ east, but it’s possible that that way doubles back, or veers south,” said Ozpin. “That road is narrower, so it is probably the later addition. I think the left fork is the road I took last time.”

Neo scribbled furiously in her notepad, and showed it to Ozpin: _They could’ve added a wider road for carts. The narrow road could be the original._

_‘It’s also possible that they widened the original road,’_ Roman said, pitching in his two cents.

Ozpin shook his head, annoyed with himself and everything else. “I don’t understand why they felt the need to add a _second_ road through the middle of nowhere.”

At that moment, Roman had never heard a sweeter sound than the harsh cry of a crow, diving toward them through the trees. It was clutching a roll of parchment in its talons. 

“Oh, thank the gods.” Ozpin held out his hand, and the bird dropped the parchment into it, landing on his outstretched arm. From there, it hopped up onto his shoulder and pecked his nose—hard. “Ow! You bit me!” Oz exclaimed, shooing the bird off. “It’s _me_ , Qrow!”

In a flutter of wings, Qrow was standing beside them, glaring at Oz. “Yeah, I know it’s you. That was for not buying a map back in town, you stubborn old man. I’ve been flying most of the night to get that to you.”

“I’ve made this journey dozens of times,” muttered Ozpin petulantly. “I didn’t think I would need a map.”

“That’s what you said when you got us lost in the Atlesian mountains, and I almost froze my beak off flying through a snowstorm to go get help from _Ironwood_. The man has _never_ let me live that down.”

“One sympathizes,” said Ozpin. “That was a freak snowstorm, I’ll remind you. It was the middle of summer.”

“There is no summer in Atlas! There’s fall, winter, colder winter, and icy death! That’s why they’ve all got icicles up their asses,” Qrow muttered.

“Alright, Atlas is one thing,” Ozpin allowed. “But I shouldn’t need a map within the borders of my own kingdom. What kind of king—?” He bit his tongue, swallowing the rest of that sentence. But Roman got one clear image of the aftermath of a great battle, the remnants of the victorious army gathering and preparing to leave the battlefield, and he knew that, just as he had led them in battle, he would be the one to lead them home.

Well, that certainly explained why Ozpin acted as though his word were royal decree. _‘How the mighty have fallen. Warrior King.’_

“That was lifetimes ago, Oz," said Qrow. "Things change.”

“I know,” Ozpin sighed. “I just wish they would stop doing it while I’m not looking.”

Qrow smiled ruefully. “I think we all do.” 

“The map is more than enough, but might you also have good news for me?”

Qrow suddenly straightened his posture, running a hand through his hair self-consciously. “I do, actually. Ruby’s up and about.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Ozpin exhaled. "She has a strong soul, but she's still so young. How is she?" 

“Same kid still hell-bent on stirring up trouble," Qrow said fondly. 

"Reminds me of a certain someone."

Qrow chuckled. "I doubt she’ll stay house-bound for long, but she and the other students need time to recuperate and...come to terms. And Glynda and the other professors have gotten the situation in the city more or less under control, although Beacon is still another matter. But she and Tai have both got me on speed-dial if anything comes up, so... Well, I could travel with you for awhile. If, if you still want me to, that is.” 

His eyes were fixed studiously on the horse rather than on Ozpin, but they lifted when Ozpin said, “I would be grateful to have you by my side, Qrow.”

“You sure? You might be better off without me.”

“That has never been true,” said Ozpin softly. Then he seemed to remember himself, and he cleared his throat and smiled reassuringly. “Together, I’m sure we can handle whatever inconveniences your Semblance might place in our path. I am quite accustomed to it by now.”

“Okay,” said Qrow. “Then I’ll stay for as long as I can. Help you keep an eye on these two.”

_‘How very generous of him.’_

“I would greatly appreciate it,” said Ozpin. “And on that note, if you don’t mind, I’m going to return control to Torchwick now. He gets restless in the backseat.”

Qrow rolled his eyes. “Fiiiine,” he sighed.

Roman wiped Ozpin’s ridiculous doe-eyed expression from his face as he looked down at Qrow as one might look down at a spider under one’s boot. In truth, he’d rather enjoyed the man’s company by the end of their little outing together, but he couldn’t let himself forget that Qrow was Ozpin’s agent just as Neo was his. And gods forbid he should form any sort of... _sentimental_ attachment to the Huntsman just because of Ozpin’s feelings for him. Qrow was right: he was best at a distance. “There’s no more room on the horse,” said Roman curtly. 

“I’ve got wings, genius,” Qrow responded. “But I’ve been flying all night and I’m tired, so for now I’ll just perch back with your sister. You won’t even know I’m there.”

Returning abruptly to his bird form, with a few flaps of his wings Qrow landed lightly on the rear ridge of the saddle, sharp talons digging into the leather. Neo turned around in the saddle, unwilling to ride with her back to him. But then she reached into the saddlebag and took out the jar of jerky, taking a piece and holding it out to Qrow. Qrow cocked his head suspiciously, but he must have been hungry, because he snapped it out of Neo’s fingers and guzzled it down whole. Neo grinned and offered him another piece. 

“Don’t feed him! He’s the enemy!” exclaimed Roman. “Besides, you’ll teach him to beg.”

Neo looked between Qrow and the piece of jerky, and then pleadingly back at Roman. She’d always loved feeding the birds in the city. When they were kids, it had been her only source of joy, Roman’s pathetic attempt at showing his sister a good time. For some reason, she’d never grown out of it. 

While Neo’s head was turned, Qrow snatched the piece of jerky from her hand. Roman glared at him, and he gave a very smug-sounding warble in response. “Fine!” said Roman, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “This whole thing is fucking insane, anyway. Why _shouldn’t_ it get weirder?” He turned back around and hunched over to examine the map, turning it until it was properly oriented. “Huh. Neo was right.”

_‘She had a fifty-fifty shot, I suppose.’_

“Oh, don’t be sore. You can’t be right about everything.” He steered the horse down the right-hand path, then kicked its sides. “Giddy-up, Crow!”

Qrow’s indignant squawk frightened several other birds from the trees as the horse took off down the path.

~ * ~ 

Along the way, they encountered a king taijitsu and a pair of ursa, but each time, Qrow was quick to fly ahead and dispatch the Grimm before Roman or Neo had to lift a finger. Roman was fast reconsidering his opinion about having Qrow along. 

“Y’know, you _could_ help,” Qrow groused, dropping the second ursa’s severed head with a gory splat, before it disintegrated to a pile of ash. 

“Oh, but it’s such a rare privilege to be able to observe a professional Huntsman of your caliber at work,” said Roman from atop the horse. 

Qrow flipped him off. 

_‘Why don’t we stop for lunch?’_ Ozpin suggested. _‘There should be a village just up ahead.’_

It was a fishing village, built around a small, crystal blue lake fed by several streams running down from the mountains in the distance. All of the buildings were raised up on stilts to accommodate seasonal fluctuations in the water level, and a boardwalk ran around the shores of the lake, from which docks jutted out over the water, each tethering several fishing boats. Enormous mounted harpoon guns ringed the perimeter of the village to repel Grimm attacks. Presumably, they were the reason the place was still standing after so long. 

_‘One of the loveliest spots in Vale, in my humble opinion.’_

“It’s…quaint,” said Roman as they passed beneath a jagged harpoon the size of a tree trunk. The gun tech sitting up at the controls gave them a friendly wave before returning his attention to scanning the tree line. 

They rode down the main street, such as it was. Qrow walked beside the horse, hands in his pockets, brooding about one thing or another. He and Ozpin certainly made quite the match. The cursed man and the angst-ridden immortal. Perhaps misery really did love company. 

They found the traveller’s inn easily enough, considering it was one of the only places open to passers by in the otherwise sleepy village. Roman hitched the horse outside and followed Qrow and Neo in. They took a table at the back of the rustic dining room, which was only sparsely occupied by a couple of other traveling parties and a few loners at the bar. A rather nice-looking young man, probably the son of the innkeeper if Roman had to guess, came over to take their orders. 

“Let me guess,” said Roman. “You’d recommend the fish?”

The man laughed, running a hand through his chestnut hair. “That’s pretty much the only thing on the menu, to be honest.”

“Well, I’m sold. Neo?” 

She nodded. 

“Yeah, sounds good,” said Qrow. “How’s your house whiskey?”

“Oh, well, it’s too strong for me, personally—“ the man began.

“Perfect,” Qrow interrupted. “I'll have a double. On the rocks.” 

“Uh, yes, of course. I’ll be right back with your orders.” With that, the man slunk off to the kitchen, casting one final backward glance at Roman before he disappeared. 

Roman lit a cigar and leaned back in his chair, blowing smoke up toward the ceiling. “There’s something that’s been bothering me,” he said.

“Is it your moral compass?” Qrow asked. 

“No,” said Roman. “It’s this: There are now four of us traveling together and working toward a common objective—”

“So you think of yourself as two people, huh?” Qrow interrupted. “I thought the deal with you and Oz was that you’re basically one person now. Two souls, one body. Kind of like a...split personality.”

”Oh, I’m sorry, have you and I been sleeping together for years, and I just missed it? Are you that forgettable?”

Qrow recoiled as though he’d been struck. “What? _No._ ”

”Then Oz and I are two people,” said Roman. “And as I was saying, the  _four_ of us working together toward a common objective  makes us a team, whether we like each other or not. But the problem is, any which way you arrange them, our initials spell nothing but garbled nonsense. RNOQ? RQON? ROQN?” 

“Since when do you care about team names?”

“Are you kidding? We had a _great_ team name. Cinder, Roman, Mercury, Emerald. Team CRME.”

Qrow dropped his head into his hands, looking stricken. “How did I not get that?” 

“That’s okay. You’re clearly not the brains of this operation.” 

_‘Don’t be rude. But on that note, the O should come first.’_

“Like hell,” said Roman. 

_‘It is my objective we are pursuing. That makes me the team leader, plain and simple.’_

“I hate to break it to you, Your Highness, but you couldn’t lead your way out of a paper bag without me. You’re just an annoying voice in my head. And anyway, putting the O in front makes it even worse. ONRQ? OQRN? Like ‘acorn’, but with an O?”

_‘Acorns are lovely. They’re a symbol of the seasons.’_

“They’re gods damn squirrel food, Oz.”

Qrow sighed, giving up on his part in the conversation and turning to Neo instead. “Man, they can just go on like that, can’t they?” 

She nodded, but didn’t look up from her notepad, where she was busy listing out every possible permutation of their four initials and looking increasingly dismayed. 'QORN' was somewhere on there. 

“It’s all your fault for throwing a fucking Q in the mix,” said Roman. 

Qrow started slightly at suddenly being reincluded. “What do you mean? Q is one of the most versatile letters. It can also be a K or a C.” He shook his head, as if coming to his senses. “Why am I even arguing with you about this? We’re not a team. You don’t even wanna be here. Hell, you’d probably sabotage us first chance you got if it weren’t for Oz.”

"And why would I do that?" inquired Roman casually. "Beacon was just business, nothing personal. Normally, I prefer to back the winning horse. But I have to say, I like Ozpin’s vision for the world a whole lot more than I like Salem’s. If I think he’s got a chance of coming out on top, then sabotage wouldn’t really be in my best interest. I just like to keep my options open is all, and he’s taken a lot of them off the table.”

Qrow snorted incredulously. “You did that yourself.”

“Perhaps,” said Roman. 

Just then, the young man from before returned with a tray of food and drinks—three plates of the day’s catch, two glasses of water and Qrow’s whiskey. Qrow started in on his drink before his food, finishing half of it in one go. “I, uh, hope you enjoy,” the man said as Qrow continued to guzzle whiskey. 

“Looks delicious,” said Roman, never breaking the other man’s lovely hazel gaze. 

His cheeks dusted an enticing shade of pink before he turned and made his exit once more. Neo shot Roman a suspicious glare, but Qrow, for his part, was too preoccupied with infusing his blood with alcohol to take any notice. 

“Speaking of poor naming choices,” he said, finally turning his attention to his food with the zeal of a man starved, “you’re gonna tell me I misheard, and that you didn’t actually name the gods damn horse after me. Aren’t you?”

“I didn’t name the horse after you,” said Roman, casually spearing a piece of the flaky white fish himself. 

“Good.”

“His name is spelled with a C.”

Qrow’s grip tightened around his fork and his eye actually twitched. “I am seriously considering murdering you right now. Oz would forgive me.”

_‘Oh dear. I would really rather he not.’_

Roman continued with his meal, unconcerned. He could read another man’s bluff from a mile away. And besides, the fish really _was_ delicious. “Now now, Qrow. We’re in public.”

“Maybe it’d be a freak accident. When I’m around, anything can happen.”

Roman feigned a melancholy sigh. “And here I thought we were getting along.”

“That’s what you thought?” Qrow scoffed. “You took advantage of me while I was drunk!”

“Oh please, you enjoyed it,” Roman sneered. 

They had turned a few heads at the tables nearest them, and it took Ozpin’s mortified _‘Please consider how this conversation sounds out of context’_ for Roman to realize why. 

“Tch. Not in Qrow’s wildest dreams,” he muttered under his breath. He continued the conversation at a lower volume. “It’s not like I tied you down and put a gun to your head. I think you and I both know that in this world—not Salem’s hellscape or Ozpin’s utopia, but _this_ world, right here—you either take or you get taken. So yes, I took advantage of your Semblance. But it’s not as though you got nothing in return.”

“Is that what relationships are to you? Just…transactions?” Qrow asked.

“Sure. You could put it that way.”

“I really oughta ram my blade through your black heart,” said Qrow. “I’d be doing Oz a favor. You’re fucking poison.”

“A little poison helps build up an immunity,” countered Roman. “So maybe _I’m_ the one doing him a favor. Too much time surrounded by like-minded souls, and anyone’s liable to lose perspective. Someone’s gotta temper our hero’s optimism, or sooner or later, he’ll be blindsided by someone like me.”

Qrow frowned, obviously taking exception to Roman’s argument, but unable to dismiss it outright. “Oz?” he said quietly. 

But Ozpin didn’t respond, instead turning over the matter in troubled silence. “For once, he doesn’t have all the answers,” said Roman. “And neither do I. But if you’re really thinking about running a blade through my heart, I’d give some thought as to where _Neo’s_ blade is at the moment.”

Qrow started, looking over at Neo across the table. “That’s not her, is it?” he said as realization dawned. 

Neo’s illusion winked at him, and then vanished. 

_‘Torchwick. Call her off.’_

“Relax, gentlemen,” said Roman, resting his hands behind his head. “She’s just looking out for me. As long as I’m safe, Qrow’s safe.” 

_‘I won’t let him harm you. Not unless you give me good cause.’_

Roman cracked a smile. “Neo?”

Neo reappeared in the chair beside Qrow, giving the man a start. Her cheeks were stuffed with peanuts, and in front of her was a half-empty bowl of them. She swallowed, and then gave Qrow a big shit-eating grin. 

“She just went to go steal bar snacks,” said Roman. “But my point stands.” He finally let the serious demeanor drop. “You should’ve seen the look on your face, Qrow,” he snickered.

Now, Qrow looked disgusted with the both of them. “Ugh. She really is your sister.”

_‘That wasn’t funny.’_

“Oh, don’t be such a buzzkill, Oz. He’s _fine_ —Neo likes him for some reason.” She offered Qrow the bowl of peanuts, which he tacitly refused, returning instead to his whiskey.“As for me,” Roman sighed, “I’ve gotta take my kicks where I can get ‘em these days.” His mood brightened considerably when he saw their server returning. “Speaking of...”

“Did you enjoy the meal?” the man asked, nominally of the whole table, but his eyes lingered on Roman.

“Best I’ve had in months,” said Roman, which, considering he’d been in jail for much of that time, really wasn’t saying much. 

But his answer seemed to please the other man considerably. “Well, it _is_ our local specialty. The cold water from the mountains makes the meat a lot sweeter...” He broke off the standard spiel, glancing away and running his hand through his hair again. “But I didn’t come over to talk to you about fish,” he said, as though reminding himself of that fact. “Actually, I meant to ask if...you’re staying here, at the inn.”

“Well...” Roman began, looking to the young man inquiringly.

“Oh! Carmine. My name is Carmine.”

“One of my favorite colors,” Roman purred. Neo rolled her eyes, stuffing more peanuts in her mouth and pointedly ignoring the exchange. Roman leaned forward, resting his chin in his hand. “Well, Carmine, what’s it to ya?”

_‘Torchwick, what are you doing?’_ Ozpin asked nervously. 

Roman ignored him, enjoying the blush that once more colored Carmine’s cheeks. “W-well, there’s a, uh, discount at the restaurant for guests of the inn,” Carmine said, looking around the table at its other occupants and finding that one was too drunk to be paying attention to what he was saying, and the other was very obviously ignoring him. “But I would need your room number,” he murmured. 

_‘Absolutely not,’_ said Ozpin.

At the same time, their interaction finally caught Qrow’s attention. He looked up at Carmine in confusion, and then at Roman. His eyes widened as the penny dropped. He slammed his glass down on the table and practically growled at Carmine, “We’re not staying here.”

Carmine backpedaled, caught off-guard by Qrow’s open hostility. “O-oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you two were—“ A withering glare from Qrow had him backing away slowly, before turning on his heel and scurrying off, his sentence left unfinished. 

Qrow tossed enough money onto the table to pay for the meal—with no tip—and stood. “Come on. We’re leaving.”

Roman stood as well, his chair scraping across the floorboards, and followed Qrow outside. Neo grabbed the bowl of peanuts and hurried after them.

Qrow grabbed Roman’s wrist and pulled him around the side of the building, under the stilts. “What the fuck was that?” he demanded. 

Roman ripped his arm out of Qrow’s grasp. “I’m not your boyfriend,” he seethed. 

“That’s not what this is about!” retorted Qrow, unconvincingly. “Do you know how _careful_ Oz has to be with stuff like that? With people, in general? Salem has agents working in the shadows just like he does, which I don’t need to tell you, because you happened to be one of them! Why do think he lives up in a gods damn tower?” Qrow grit his teeth, looking away. “Lived,” he corrected, the word uttered barely loud enough for Roman to hear. 

_‘Qrow…’_

Roman shook off Ozpin’s pathetic melancholy. “So I’ve gotta live like a monk for the rest of my life?”

“You need to re-evaluate who you can trust.”

“I don’t trust anyone!” Roman spat. “I don’t trust _him_ , I don’t trust _you_ , I didn’t trust my old team and I was damn right not to! _She_ is the only person I trust,” he said, pointing to Neo. Neo crossed to stand beside him, her presence silently supportive. 

Qrow heaved a heavy sigh. “That’s not the answer, either. Neither of you can do this alone, even if you had the option to. Gods know why, but Oz is putting a lot of faith in you.” He shifted his weight uncomfortably, glancing away. “And…that’s good enough for me, I guess. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but…you can trust me. Doesn’t mean I trust you,” he added quickly. “Oz wants me to keep a close eye on you, and that’s what I’m gonna do. But as long as you and he have an understanding, then…you and I do, too.” 

Roman let him squirm for a moment, although he hardly needed that long to assess Qrow’s sincerity. The damn fool wore his tattered heart on his sleeve. “How about I consider it?” said Roman, finally. “On the condition that you stop acting like my jilted lover.”

Qrow’s gaze snapped back to Roman’s. “I wasn’t—“ Finding no quarter there, he looked to Neo. “I wasn’t…” Her skeptical expression mirrored Roman’s exactly. Qrow’s eyes narrowed as he turned back to Roman. “I don’t even like you,” he said. Then, to Neo, “And you’re on thin ice.” 

Roman sighed wistfully. “You say the sweetest things.” 

“ _Don’t_ make me reconsider.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roman: Wait, Qrow, it's not what you think—
> 
> Qrow, brandishing Harbinger: I won't hesitate, bitch!


	13. Smoke and Mirrors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this chapter listening to this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAiBwOhrc0Q

Across the lake from the village was a broad, silty shore where one of the river inlets flowed out from the forest. Ozpin suggested it would be a good place to continue training, in that very particular way of his where a suggestion was really a command. So they rode out from the village and around the lake, choosing a flat and secluded spot for their temporary training grounds. 

A crow perched low in one of the trees above them cawed harshly at their approach. Qrow cawed back from his place on the horse as Roman brought the beast to a halt. Roman and Neo dismounted, while Qrow simply hopped off, landing on his feet in his human form. 

“Friend of yours?” Roman asked, nodding to the other crow. 

“Nope,” said Qrow.

“What was it saying?”

“‘Go away’.” Qrow pulled out his flask and took a swig of whiskey. “All crows are bastards, myself included.”

“And what did you say?” asked Roman, his curiosity piqued.

“‘Fuck off’.”

Roman chuckled. “Well, if he’s no friend of yours...” He raised his cane, flipping up the crosshairs at the end of the barrel and lining up his sights on the crow. 

“Whoah, hey!” Qrow knocked Roman’s cane aside at the last minute, causing his shot to go wide, merely scaring the crow off with another indignant caw. “What the hell was that for?” he demanded.

“Target practice,” said Roman. 

Qrow looked horrified. “Just because someone’s rude to you, you decide you’re gonna _murder_ them?”

“I’m guessing ‘no’ is the answer you’re looking for...”

Qrow stared at him. “You’re a complete sociopath.”

“You seem surprised,” said Roman. 

Qrow turned and stalked away, muttering, “I suppose I shouldn’t be.” He chose a craggy boulder at the edge of the tree line, finding a surprisingly comfortable-looking lounging position within its contours, and continued nursing his flask. 

“You’re just gonna sit there and drink while Neo and I bust our asses?” Roman called, hitching the horse to a tree. 

“I’ve been killing Grimm all morning,” Qrow called back. “Now it’s my turn to kick back and enjoy the show.” 

Qrow sounded far too eager to watch Roman and his sister fight. “You’re fine with this?” Roman asked.

_‘He’s earned a break. Besides, he is already a trained Huntsman.’_

“I call favoritism,” said Roman, walking out into the open with Neo. 

_‘The fact that I like him more than you is irrelevant in this case.’_

“Did Qrow ever tell you your bedside manner could use some work?” Roman grumbled. He and Neo turned their backs to one another, each taking ten paces, and then turning to face each other once more, weapons ready. “Well, what are we working on today? I’ve got the hang of using my Aura, now.”

_‘Yes, you’re learning quite quickly. Let’s just begin and see where it takes us.’_

“Don’t tell me you’re running out of ideas,” said Roman.

_‘Hardly.’_

“Alright.” Roman shrugged. “You’re the boss...” He locked eyes with Neo and nodded. But as she dashed forward to meet him, he raised his cane, aiming purposely at her feet. She skidded to a halt, using the blast force of the explosive round to throw herself into a backflip. Roman fired again, but this time, she leapt high into the air, opening her umbrella and riding the shockwave and the rising heat to close the distance between them, then snapping her umbrella shut and dropping into a roll, too low to the ground for Roman to adjust his aim in time. She swept her leg out when she reached him, intending to knock him off his feet, but he slammed his cane down into the ground, blocking the kick. So she kicked her other leg around and sprang to her feet, swinging her umbrella up between his legs.

“Whoah!” Roman wasn’t nearly as acrobatic as his sister, but he could sure as hell pull of a handspring to avoid _that_ shot, vaulting over his sister’s head and rolling to break his fall. He only had himself to blame when Neo fought dirty, since he’d taught her to do just that, but it was rare moments like these when he wished he’d been a man of greater honor. 

He came up just in time to deflect her next swing with his forearm, his heavy leather glove acting like a vambrace. The leather was tough enough to deflect knives if he had to. Thrusting her umbrella away, he lunged with his cane, striking her right in the solar plexus. She leapt back with a gasp, pink light sparking across her chest. But in response, she launched a volley of attacks that came twice as hard and twice as fast, putting Roman back on the defensive. He spun his cane around his back into his other hand, gripping it around the middle and using the end to deflect Neo’s swift punch, then twisting it to catch Neo’s other wrist with the handle. He kept twisting, forcing Neo’s arms to cross painfully, and then he kicked her in the stomach, sending her flying backwards. She landed on her feet with a quiet huff, and took advantage of the distance he’d put between them, disappearing behind an illusion. 

He shot through it immediately, but he’d lost track of her. Roman had gotten quicker on his feet since he’d started training with Ozpin, but when Neo came at him again from the side, she was even faster. Roman couldn’t land a hit as she deflected with her open umbrella and turned flips and spins around every attack, forcing him to fall back on the defensive once more.

_‘Mind if I cut in?’_

Ozpin didn’t wait for Roman’s answer. Roman saw the golden flash of his eyes reflected in Neo’s as they widened, and she took a step back. 

_‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?’_ Roman demanded.

“Testing a theory.” He raised Roman’s cane, and Neo leapt to the side just before he fired, disappearing behind another illusion. She dashed out, attempting to circle around behind him, throwing up illusion after illusion as Ozpin blasted apart each one right behind her. 

_‘Hey! Stop shooting at my sister! Only I’m allowed to do that!’_

“I doubt she’ll let me hit her,” Ozpin said. And as it turned out, that entire series of illusions had been a distraction, because Neo attacked from the opposite flank, striking her umbrella across Ozpin’s side, hard enough to crack a rib, had Ozpin’s emerald green Aura not sparked  to life, absorbing the damage. But the impact still left him breathless. 

“Clever girl,” he panted, a hand closing around his cane behind his back. He was feigning the extent to which he’d been caught off-guard, and when Neo swung at him again, he blocked the attack with Roman’s cane and struck back with his own. Neo barely leapt back in time to evade the counter-attack, and Ozpin kept pressing his advantage. Time seemed to slow down as he moved with supernatural speed to attack, and to evade Neo’s best efforts at counter-attack. And yet, Neo’s rapid-fire production of illusions kept Ozpin guessing, and kept her just out of his reach. They danced around each other in a rain of shattered illusory glass, and while Ozpin attacked with greater force, it didn’t matter if he couldn’t hit her.

Ozpin’s voice resounded in Roman’s mind. _‘You blame yourself for handicapping your sister, but does she seem handicapped to you? Her small stature makes her harder to hit and more agile, lighter on her feet and in the air when she uses that umbrella of hers. And her inability to communicate verbally means she has become an expert in minute nonverbal queues. She is reading my every move before I make it.’_

What Ozpin was saying was true—but Roman had never seen his sister fight like _this_ before. _‘She has been holding back with you,’_ said Ozpin. And yet, even now, Roman could tell that Ozpin was the one holding back—he was doing all of this merely to prove a point. _‘You have been driven by the need to protect her her entire life, but she doesn’t need your protection anymore. If anything, you rely on her too much. If you continue to lean on her, she will never grow to her full potential.’_

Neo could only keep up the illusions for so long, however, and she was tiring quickly as her Aura depleted. 

_‘You can let go of Neo and she will be fine. Believe it or not, you need to think more selfishly.’_

They were surrounded by the shards of Neo’s shattered illusions, swirling and dancing in the ozone of raw power radiating from Ozpin. Neo and Ozpin seemed to realize this at the same time, and Ozpin threw up a shield of magical energy just as she turned all of the glinting shards in the air and sent them shooting toward him from all directions. 

They shattered against his shield, but the prolonged magic use was finally wearing Ozpin out, and his shield flickered and died. Neo didn’t allow him a second to catch his breath, lashing out with a vicious kick. Ozpin, the utter bastard, chose that moment to give Roman back control, leaving Roman merely a split-second to brace for the impact. His own Aura flared reddish-orange around him as the force of Neo’s kick sent him crashing down on his back, knocking the breath out of his lungs.

Neo slammed her foot down on his chest and stopped the tip of her sword an inch from his throat. She was panting hard, her eyes wild, and all in all, she resembled very little the primly elegant girl that Roman had thought he knew. She was a warrior. 

As Roman gasped for breath, Ozpin continued, _‘She no longer needs your protection, and you cannot continue to rely on hers. So how will you protect yourself?’_

He began to exhale puffs of black smoke with every breath, until it was pouring from his lips, and he should have been choking on it, but instead he felt...light. Airy. Liberated. Perhaps he’d hit his head harder than he’d thought, because everything started to go black. But then, the next second, he was standing right behind Neo, his dagger pressed to her throat. She went very still.

Finally, Roman’s rational mind kicked in, overcoming the cocktail of confusion, adrenalin and self-preservation instincts. He dropped the knife and stumbled back, falling to his knees. “Fuck you, Oz,” he panted. 

_‘You’re welcome_.’

~ * ~ 

Neo picked up his knife and offered it back to him, her trust in him shaken, but unbroken. The smile she offered along with it was genuine—he had finally done it. After so many years out of step with those around him, he had finally caught up. And yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d lost more than he’d gained. 

_‘You haven’t lost her,’_ said Ozpin. _‘The bond you two share is much stronger than that. She still needs her brother, as you still need her. But there is a difference between codependence and interdependence.’_

Roman scoffed. “You sure _you_ wanna lecture _me_ about codependence?” 

_‘…Fair point.’_

Roman accepted his knife back from Neo and allowed her to pull him to his feet. Then he pulled her close to him, a silent apology where a verbal one simply wasn’t enough. She hugged him back. _Apology accepted._ Then, he let her go. 

Curiously, he looked down at his hands, tapping into that same airy lightness he’d felt suffuse his entire being at the end of the fight. Black smoke began to trail from his fingertips as he flexed them experimentally. Then, the dagger dropped _through_ his hand and he swore, jerking his foot back just before the blade buried itself in the compressed dirt of his footprint. 

_‘Do be careful. Students sustain very stupid injuries experimenting with newly discovered Semblances.’_

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Roman, retrieving his dagger. He and Neo made their way back to the tree line where Qrow and Crow awaited them. 

“What, no encore?” Qrow asked. “That was better entertainment than I’d expected.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” said Roman. 

“So, your Semblance is smoke, huh? I’d been wondering.”

“Of course it is. I’m just...a little rusty with it. Haven’t used it in awhile.”

“Why not?” Qrow asked skeptically. “I can think of a lot of uses for a Semblance like that. Especially for a criminal.”

“I had people to do my dirty work for me, Qrow. Rather like Ozpin has you.”

Qrow’s eyes narrowed. “Y’know, it actually reminds me of Ruby’s Semblance.”

Roman gasped. “You take that back!”

_‘Qrow is right. It falls into the same class: complete transmutation.’_

“I’ve got nothing in common with that little brat,” Roman snapped, turning his back on Qrow to unhitch the horse. He wasn’t sure which was worse: Qrow comparing him to Red, or his own reluctant thoughts that Cinder would find this quite amusing. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire—almost as though he’d been destined to be her harbinger. 

“Yeah, I agree with you there.” Qrow finally rose from his reclining position on the boulder, taking one more swig of whiskey before screwing his flask shut and tucking it away. He chuckled. “I guess that makes you and Neo smoke and mirrors.”

Oh. Roman liked that comparison much better. He and Neo exchanged a smile. “I guess it does,” he said, twirling his cane. Really, he shouldn’t be so down on the idea—that was probably Ozpin’s gloomy influence. He’d discovered his Semblance, and it was a good one. Qrow was right, he could think of a lot of ways he could use it. He just needed practice, and a few opportunities to experiment. “Hey, Qrow…” 

_‘Not on him, Torchwick.’_

“Uh, do your thing. We’re leaving.” 

Qrow shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” With a flutter of wings, he was back in his bird form, taking up his previous perch on the back of the saddle. 

“I’m starting to think he’s just lazy,” Roman muttered, securing his cane and Neo’s umbrella to the saddle. 

_‘He doesn’t like to fly after he’s had a few. He tends to…bump into things.’_

Roman snorted. “Some secret agent he is.” 

_‘He’s very good at what he does. He just does it in his own way_.’

Qrow swayed and nearly tumbled off the horse, righting himself with a frantic flap of his wings and a startled squawk. 

“Uh huh.” 

Roman and Neo mounted up, and they set off back along the lakeside road. They passed by the village, and Roman once more kissed civilization goodbye, as well as his best chance at getting laid anytime soon. Really, he hardly begrudged Qrow his drinking. Everyone needed a good vice or two. Except, apparently, for Ozpin. Well, unless you counted Qrow, but the two of them were so obviously and painfully in love with each other, Roman wasn’t even sure _what_ Qrow counted as. A liability, probably. 

At least now, Roman had something new to distract him from thinking too much about the future. Unfortunately, he may have been a little too distracted. The ground shook beneath them, and the horse reared back with a whinny, nearly throwing all three of them off. A great, rocky hulk of a creature emerged from the trees, blocking the path ahead, its single glowing yellow eye fixed on them. 

_‘A petra gigas. Hard to kill, but it can be weakened by—‘_

There was a heavy _ka-chunk_ from a ways behind them, and then a _whirr_ as something shot through the air over their heads. Then, finally, a sharp _crack_ as a massive harpoon buried itself in the creature’s eye. A crack spread down its face, and then its head fell away in two halves, and the rest of the boulders composing its limbs simply tumbled to the ground, inert.

Roman looked back over his shoulder to see the same gun technician who had greeted them on their way into the village giving them another friendly wave from up in his tower. For lack of a better response, Roman waved back. “One of the loveliest spots in Vale, indeed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roman: Ozpin, what the fuck are you doing?
> 
> Ozpin: Seen - 1:35 PM
> 
> Roman: This is a verbal conversation!


	14. Waiting for a Train

Most days, they didn’t see much of Qrow. He elected to fly ahead and scout the path, eliminating any Grimm, and taking the lay of the land to be sure they didn’t encounter any surprises. He would rejoin them when they stopped for lunch, and wherever they made camp for the night. Ostensibly, he was keeping his distance for Ozpin’s own good, but Roman suspected he was also avoiding Ozpin for his own reasons. Which suited Roman just fine. He didn’t need any distractions—or any more commentary than he already got from Ozpin—while he practiced controlling his Semblance. But sometimes, when Ozpin had chosen to give another of his lectures on the road, and Qrow was too drunk to fly straight, he would perch on Ozpin’s shoulder to listen as they rode through the woods, and Ozpin would stroke his feathers absentmindedly. Ozpin’s contentment in these moments kept Roman from voicing too many protests, although he certainly had them. But Ozpin’s good moods were rare, and infinitely preferable to his bad ones. So Roman figured he could tolerate the behavior, as long as Qrow’s talons didn’t tear his bespoke coat. The day that happened, he’d use _Qrow_ for target practice.

Today, however, Qrow had taken off in the morning, and all they had seen of him since was his distant silhouette across the sky as he did the occasional flyover. So they knew something was wrong when he came careening down toward them, his harsh cry making Roman wince. Roman brought the horse to a halt, and Qrow landed beside him in a crouch, his cape flaring out behind him.

“There’s some kind of trouble in the village up ahead,” he said, rising. “I think the people there might need help.”

Roman groaned. “Not again. Why don’t we just go around?”

Qrow rested a hand on his hip and tapped his foot impatiently. “Can I talk to Oz, please?”

“What am I, a switchboard operator?” Roman snapped.

But Ozpin rather undermined his point by taking control the next moment. “Tell me what you saw,” he said.

Qrow ran a hand through his hair, looking suddenly unsure. “Well, that’s the thing. There are no signs of an attack. But something isn’t right. There are hardly any signs of _life_. The village hasn’t been abandoned, but the whole place reeks of fear. And I overheard part of a conversation about what the village could do to defend itself when ‘they’ came.”

“Could it simply be anxiety in the wake of the attack on Beacon?”

Qrow shook his head. “The man said ‘ _when_ ’, not ‘if’. Call it animal instinct, but I think they’re under threat.”

Ozpin nodded. “Then let’s see what we can find out. Lead the way, Qrow.” Qrow took off at Ozpin’s word, soaring up above the treetops. Ozpin flicked the reins, and they took off down the path at a swift canter, chasing Qrow’s shadow.

 _‘Why?’_ Roman asked, exasperated. _‘We don’t know these people. Oh, and by the way, don’t you have this grand plan to save humanity? Isn’t it rather time-sensitive? Have you ever thought about, I don’t know, maybe…prioritizing? Seriously, fuck these people!’_

Ozpin ignored his objections, and pressed on.

~ * ~

They rode into the village as Qrow soared overhead, turning wide, slow circles—keeping watch. It was quiet. Only a few people were out in the streets, and they walked in close twos and threes, or stood with their backs against the buildings, talking in hushed tones. It was a small settlement, the only real sign of civilization a podunk little train station at the other end of the main street.

_‘This must be the end of the line.’_

“Yes,” Ozpin murmured. “That train line goes east through the mountains to Prism City, almost on the Mistral border.”

_‘Great! Let’s just take the train. From Prism we can get an airship to Mistral.’_

“It’s a private railway, for use only by the Prism civil guard. They have an arrangement with the outlying farming villages along the railway line: food to feed their citizens in exchange for their protection. It works out well for both parties, or it used to. But I don’t see any guardsmen on patrol...”

_‘Oh. I think I know what’s going on here.’_

“Psst! Travelers, over here!” A girl of about seventeen, dressed in tattered overalls, was beckoning them over from a narrow throughway between two houses. Ozpin, either out of valor or stupidity, steered the horse over to her and dismounted, hitching the creature at the mouth of the passageway, then walked into the shadows to meet the girl. Neo followed, grabbing their weapons. At least if this girl tried to mug them, she’d be in for a nasty surprise. 

“Where are you from?” the girl asked, an urgent tone to her voice keeping the question from being a casual one.

“The City of Vale,” Ozpin answered.

Her face fell. “Oh. I'm...I'm so sorry. And I’m afraid you can’t help us, after all.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

The girl slumped back against the side of the building, her short, brown curls obscuring her face. “After the attack on Vale, Prism has started demanding more food from the villages along the railway. More than we can spare. But the city council is afraid—of another attack, of more Grimm, of another war, or the collapse of the kingdoms, or of all of the above. So they’re preparing for the worst, forcing us to load more and more of our harvest onto the train to be taken back to the city. And if we don’t give them what they want, they’ll withdraw the guard and leave us defenseless against the creatures of Grimm.”

_‘It’s a classic extortion racket.’_

“Where are the guardsmen assigned to this village?” Ozpin asked.

“They’re all holed up in the train station. The next train is due in three hours. It'll be the fourth time they’ve come in two weeks.”

“How have they been able to do all of this without anyone taking notice?”

“With the tower down, remote areas like this have fallen into communications blackout.” Ozpin pulled out Roman’s scroll, only to confirm that there was no signal. “As long as we can’t get word to anyone about what’s happening, they can keep getting away with it. That’s why when I saw you, I thought…” She sighed, holding back tears. “But Vale can’t help us. Another city, maybe, if they’re not too preoccupied with their own problems.”

There was a sort of pressurized fury building in Ozpin at her words. He was too self-possessed to show it, but Roman could sure as hell feel it. He could also understand it, although he didn’t care to dwell too much on why. Ozpin had ruled these lands once, not all that long ago. Doubtless, he had tried to make Vale into the kind of harmonious utopia that he dreamed of. It would have been his best shot. But just like other kings before him, he had been unable to avoid the gathering stormclouds of war. And he had gone down in history as the Warrior King—a mighty victor, rather than a broker of peace. But of course, even Ozpin understood that sometimes, the only way to achieve peace is to slay your enemies.

He placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder and offered her a reassuring smile. “We may yet be able to help. If you’re willing to help us.”

The girl looked skeptical as to what two lone refugees might be able to do to remedy her village’s dire circumstances, but she nodded nonetheless. “What can I do?”

“I want to hear the precise details of this whole operation,” he said, “or as much as you know. But I’d also like to get a sense of what sort of shape the other villages are in.”

Taking Roman’s scroll and angling it toward the sun, he used the glass like a mirror to signal Qrow, still circling high above. Qrow tucked his wings in and dove toward them. Ozpin held out his arm, and Qrow landed on it with a flutter of wings and a soft, inquisitive clicking sound, his talons digging into the thick leather of Roman’s glove.

“You have a trained bird?” the girl exclaimed. It was the first time they’d seen her smile. Her expression mirrored Neo’s almost exactly as both girls fawned over the stupid bird. Neo never so much as offered Qrow a kind gesture when he was human, but whenever he happened to be a bird, he was suddenly her new favorite plaything. Roman should have got her a pet when she was younger.

“Indeed I do,” said Ozpin, stroking Qrow’s beak with his finger. 

Qrow bit it.

“ _Ouch_ ,” Ozpin hissed, as Roman swore. “Actually, he thinks of himself more as a person,” continued Ozpin sheepishly. “Crows are very clever birds.”

Qrow preened his flight feathers, giving the girl a show. 

“Can I pet him?” the girl asked, eyes shining with childlike wonder.

“Er,” said Ozpin, eyeing Qrow nervously. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Qrow seems to be bit temperamental at the moment.”

“He’s a crow and his name is Crow? That’s not very creative.”

“Well, I...” Ozpin cleared his throat. “That’s beside the point. The point is, he can understand us.”

Ozpin briefly explained the situation to Qrow, using small, simple words an animal might comprehend. Roman found the whole ruse highly amusing, while Qrow ruffled his feathers in irritation. “Bad people from the city are stealing the good villagers’ food,” said Ozpin. Qrow’s grip tightened considerably on Roman’s arm. “I want you to scout the other villages along the railway. But return swiftly.” Ozpin tapped Qrow’s foot three times—three hours. “I’m going to need you.”

Qrow gave another low, warbling-clicking sound that apparently indicated he understood. Then Ozpin thrust his arm out, and Qrow launched into the air, his silhouette soon diminishing to a dark speck in the vast sky.

“That’s amazing,” the girl murmured, watching after Qrow.

“He really is quite something,” said Ozpin softly. He returned his attention to the girl. “Now, please just give me a moment to confer with my colleague. We’ll be right back.” He motioned for Neo to follow him through to the other end of the passageway and out the back, behind the buildings. But she wasn’t the colleague he’d been referring to.

_‘I feel like a broken record here, but would you care to fill me in on your plan?’_

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but...I think we need to rob that train.”

 _‘Oh, Oz,’_ Roman purred, _‘save the dirty talk for your boyfriend.’_

Ozpin sighed, rubbing his temples. “Right. I almost forgot who I was talking to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roman: Why do we keep stopping to help all these randos?
> 
> Ozpin: Because it’s the right thing to do.
> 
> Roman: Ooooh, I think I get it. Are the real Relics the friends we made along the way?
> 
> Ozpin: No. 
> 
>  
> 
> [A/N: I accidentally called my cousin “Roman” the other day. His name is Logan. This fic is eating my brain.]


	15. Crime 101: A Crash Course

“Just, hypothetically speaking, could you do it?”

_‘I’m offended you even have to ask. I stole a whole train once, if you remember.’_

“I remember,” replied Ozpin grimly. “But could you do it without casualties, and without risking repercussions that would fall on the villagers? Because I don’t see a way...”

 _‘I see several. It’s just a matter of how we utilize the resources we have at hand. If you really wanna do this, then we can do it so they never know what hit ‘em. Trust me.’_ Roman tried not to sound too eager. He was agreeing to this as a bit of fun, and as a means to keep his skills sharp. But really, this was his chance to back up his words with actions, to prove to Ozpin that he could be relied on as a trustworthy partner. Then, the paranoid old wizard might finally let down his guard just enough for Roman to figure out what he was hiding.

“You haven’t yet earned my trust, Torchwick.”

 _‘Then allow me the chance,’_ said Roman, simply. _‘This is what I do best. You’d be a fool not to take advantage of that. And besides, it’s not like I can do anything without your supervision.’_

Ozpin sighed deeply. “Considering I don’t have a better idea, and that this _is_ your area of expertise...I suppose I should be asking _you_ what the plan is.”

Roman tamped down the feeling of victory into quiet satisfaction. _‘Our resources are these: a local informant, an illusionist, a magician, a registered Huntsman with a few tricks of his own up his sleeve, and of course, yours truly. See where I’m going with this?’_

“Not precisely...”

Roman sighed. _‘It takes practice, being a criminal mastermind. But don’t worry, I’m the best teacher you could ask for.’_

“Oh dear. The phrase ‘you learn new things everyday’ used to be a comfort to me.”

_‘Relax, it’ll be fun! You’ve just gotta follow my lead for once.’_

“Alright. But don’t make me regret it, Torchwick.”

With Ozpin’s vague threat still hanging in the air between them, they returned to their girl in the passageway to get the full rundown and all the nitty-gritty details Roman needed to solidify his plan. Protecting the villagers from any blowback presented an interesting challenge, but every job came with its unique little quirks. It was nothing he and Neo couldn’t handle with a bit of classic misdirection, or as Qrow had so aptly put it, smoke and mirrors.

Since the girl—whose name, they learned, was Thea—had met Ozpin first, they agreed it would be best if Ozpin handled all of their interactions with her and simply asked the questions Roman told him to, rather than Roman asking them himself while doing his best Ozpin impression. Although, he would probably be pretty good at it by now. But Oz asked Roman’s questions, and Thea answered them in as much detail as she could recall, describing the cargo loading procedure, the number of guardsmen that accompanied the train and the weapons they were outfitted with, their security protocols, the basic mechanics and design of the train itself—everything short of the conductor’s mother’s maiden name. She didn’t know any specifics of course, but Roman was able to fill most of them in from her descriptions. The train sounded like a Quicksilver Class 5, coal engine, ideal for long-haul cargo transport. The guardsmen were equipped with automatic hunting rifles with custom modifications for various types of dust ammunition—probably Schnee manufacture. And they operated like a private militia.

The more Ozpin heard, the more doubtful he became, but when Thea had finished answering his questions and finally asked, “So you really think you can help us?”, Ozpin projected nothing but the confidence Roman felt.

“I do. I believe we can recover what is rightfully yours, one way or another. It is imperative, however, that the people here put up no resistance when the train comes. That way only leads to bloodshed.”

“I know,” she said. “It would be their automatic rifles against our shotguns and pitchforks. But a lot of people think doing nothing is worse. We either roll over and let them take everything, and starve, or we fight back and get gunned down in the streets, or left for the Grimm. I like your third option best.”

_‘They won’t starve. With or without the protection of the guard, if there’s a famine, the Grimm will kill them before the hunger does.’_

“I know,” Ozpin muttered under his breath. But to Thea he offered a reassuring smile. “Unfortunately, you cannot let the others in on what we’re planning, or we could be compromised,” said Ozpin. “But what you can do is spread a rumor: say you saw a flock of nevermore on the horizon not long ago. It may remind people why they need the guardsmen.”

She nodded. “Okay. I can do that.”

Ozpin paused, reluctant to voice his next words. “You know, Prism is likely to fall back on these same exploitative tactics again in the future. In the long run, your best option may be to leave.”

“Maybe,” said Thea. “But we fought hard to build this village. This is our home. And there’s no place like it.”

Ozpin smiled. “In that case, I wish you good luck, Ms. Thea.”

“Thank you,” she said. “If the gods really do exist, I hope they’re watching over us today.”

“Hope is a powerful thing,” said Ozpin. “It never goes to waste.”

“Even if you can’t get back what’s been taken from us, you’ve at least given that back to me,” Thea said. Then she slipped away, leaving them alone in the passageway.

“What is the true purpose of her spreading that rumor?” Ozpin asked when she was gone.

_‘Threefold: One, with any luck, it’ll keep the villagers pacified, like you said. Two, it’ll make the guardsmen nervous, and inclined to take very specific precautions. And three, it implants an idea in their heads, making them more susceptible to it later. Now let me talk to my sister.’_

Ozpin turned over control to him, although he wasn’t pleased that Roman still hadn’t shared his plan. But he would just have to be patient. Once Roman had finished putting all the pieces in place, then he would fill his crew in on how they were going to pull the heist, and the role each member had to play. He was sticking to his standard operating procedure. Muddying the waters early with half-baked ideas only risked confusion later, especially when working with novices. Which wasn’t to say that he didn’t also enjoy the delicious turning of tables wherein Ozpin had to do what Roman told him without quite knowing why.

“Remember the train job we pulled with that crew from Patch a few years back?” he asked Neo.

She nodded, but her sour expression indicated just what she’d thought of that crew. There was a reason they’d only run one job together.

“Exactly,” said Roman, sharing her displeasure. “But in addition to being forced to work with amateurs, there are other similarities between that job and this one. First, we’ve gotta make off with a lot of shit—more than we can carry. And second, no one on the train can know we were ever there, because if they suspect they’ve been robbed there’ll be consequences. We’re gonna handle both factors the same now as we did back then, got it?”

Neo nodded again, this time, with a hint of an excited smile.

 _‘I’m sorry, but how can you_ possibly _steal from someone without them realizing sooner or later that they’ve been stolen from? And how_ do _you propose we transport this sheer volume of stolen goods?’_

Roman responded with a question of his own. “You said the train goes through the mountains. Does it pass through a tunnel?”

_‘Yes, just before it reaches the city.’_

“Perfect. Then that answers your first question.”

_‘No, it doesn’t!’_

“As for your second,” Roman continued, “I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that I’ll only be stealing _half_ a train this time.”

 _‘_ Half _the_ train _? They are_ definitely _going to notice that go missing!’_

“How astute of you, Professor. You really must’ve run a top-notch academy.”

Ozpin made an inarticulate sound of frustration. _‘Fine. I’ll stop prying if you promise to explain your plan in full as soon as Qrow returns.’_

Roman leaned back against the side of the building and lit a cigar. As he watched the tip smolder and the smoke start to rise, the final piece fell into place. “Deal.”

~ * ~

While they waited for Qrow, they found a less conspicuous place to hitch the horse in the woods, and then staked out the train station from the tree line. The station was really little more than a long, sheltered platform, and they watched as six guardsmen moved about twenty large, wooden crates up onto the platform and stacked them at certain intervals to be loaded onto the train when it arrived. Occasionally, two guards would leave the group and stalk out into the village, returning ten minutes later carrying another crate between them.

Roman observed their interactions, the tension they carried in their movements, the way they kept looking over their shoulders and scanning the buildings. They knew they had pushed the villagers almost to a breaking point. But they had their orders, and apparently the pay was good enough to silence their consciences. Just as a shepherd protected his flock from predators, and yet slaughtered the lambs to feed his family, so the guardsmen defended the village from Grimm, and reaped the spoils. Today just happened to be a reaping day. 

A crow’s cry cut through Roman’s thoughts. “In a human dialect please, Qrow,” he said.

Qrow landed beside him, straightening up in his human form. He stood a couple inches taller than Roman, which unnerved Roman for some reason, until Ozpin provided the answer. _‘We used to be of a height.’_

Roman rolled his eyes beneath the brim of his hat before lifting his chin to address Qrow. “Well?”

“They’re all in a bad way,” said Qrow. “All four villages along the railway between here and Prism have been bled dry by the civil guard. I watched them load the train in the next village over—they had to keep the villagers back at gunpoint. There was nearly a riot. We’ve gotta do something.”

“Way ahead of you, Feathers. We’re gonna pull a train heist. I’ve got it all planned.”

“We’re...what? Is Oz on board with this?”

“It was his idea.”

Qrow stared at him for a second, two, three. “Is Oz feeling okay?” he asked, finally. “Oz, you wanna discuss this?”

Roman snapped his fingers in Qrow’s face. “Hey, we’re having a conversation. That’s rude.” Qrow looked suitably taken-aback, so Roman continued, “Ozpin’s just fine. He’s decided to do what needs to be done, just like you said. It’s simple: These people need to eat. There’s food on that train. We rob the train, these villages don’t starve.”

“I get the logic,” said Qrow. “It just…doesn’t sound like him. It sounds like _you_.”

“Me? Doing something at significant personal risk for no personal gain? Just who do you take me for?”

“No, you’re right,” said Qrow, shaking his head. “Forget I said anything. So, how are we gonna do this?”

“You ever pull a train job back when you were running with the tribe?” Roman asked.

“A couple,” said Qrow. He chuckled. “I guess I was thieving before you were born.”

Roman raised an eyebrow. “Alright, hotshot, don’t get cocky. You’re out of practice. But at least you’ve got _some_ experience. For once, _Ozpin’s_ the novice. But he’s got me, so he’ll do just fine. Here’s the plan.”

~ * ~

“I don’t know,” said Qrow, once Roman had finished. “There’s a lot that can go wrong.”

_‘Qrow’s right. His Semblance is likely to throw a spanner in the works of an operation as intricate as this.’_

“Unfortunately, you have an important part to play, or I’d be happy to leave you behind with Crow, here,” said Roman, to Qrow’s chagrin. “Of course, I’ve got contingency plans, but this one is our best shot at getting the goods without getting the heat. Anyway, luck’s just a matter of perspective. It would be _their_ bad luck if we pull this off. Isn’t your Semblance as likely to work in our favor as theirs?”

“It’s unpredictable. That’s the point.”

Roman shrugged. “Then we’ll just have to improvise when and if you screw us over. If we have to tip our hand, there are other ways to keep the guard from coming after the villagers.”

_‘Ways that don’t involve eliminating witnesses?’_

Roman sighed. “Okay, _other_ other ways,” he muttered. “Listen, do you guys want to help these people or not? Because I’m perfectly happy to leave them to their fate, but I’m pretty sure that goes against everything a Huntsman stands for.”

“Alright, Torchwick,” said Qrow. “If Oz is on board with this, then so am I. We have to try.”

_‘Even with the potential for complications, I think the plan you’ve devised is the best chance these villages have. I’m with you on this.’_

Roman turned to Neo, who put her hands on her hips, a wry smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. _Do you even have to ask?_

“Alright.” Roman grinned. “I think I hear the train.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ozpin: No casualties, Torchwick. I’m serious.
> 
> Roman, sighing: There’s always that one weak bitch in the group that isn’t down with murder.


	16. Hunting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course, this song was my soundtrack writing this chapter: https://youtu.be/726PwwfqZZ4

“First things first,” said Roman as they watched the monstrous steel train slide into the station, belching black smoke. The Quicksilver Class 5 was over six thousand tons of reinforced steel, mounted with a 360-degree rotational high-caliber dust ammunition gun turret. It had been designed to repel Grimm attacks. But not thieves. “Give me Ozpin’s glasses.”

Qrow’s eyes widened. “How did you know I—?” 

“Don’t insult my observational abilities, Qrow. Just give them to me. I promise I’ll return them, if you’re really that attached to them.” 

Reluctantly, Qrow dipped his hand into his breast pocket and pulled out a pair of dark, round spectacles. Roman had noticed them when he’d slipped a five-hundred Lien card into Qrow’s pocket—Qrow’s share of their little gambling operation. He hadn’t recognized them in his drunken stupor, however—he’d made the connection the next morning. “I knew he’d want his cane back…” said Qrow softly, looking down at the delicate frames.

Ozpin’s lack of commentary was more telling than anything he might have said.

“Save the sob stories for your next bartender,” said Roman, holding out his hand. Qrow fixed him with a murderous look, but he dropped the glasses into Roman’s open palm. There was a crack in the right lens, but Roman’s hair obscured it when he put them on. “What d’ya think? Do they suit me?”  

“No.” 

Roman rolled his eyes. “Give me two minutes.” 

He made his way down to the train station alone, where the guardsmen were bustling about loading up the new cargo, and bringing the engine around to the other end of the train using a series of track switches and rotating platforms. The villagers, for the most part, were watching the proceedings from their windows, unwilling to put themselves in the path of the guardsmen’s guns—and perhaps, afraid of that roving flock of nevermore. 

As he drew closer, Roman began to sweep his cane from side to side across the ground, scanning the activity in front of him from behind Oz’s dark glasses. He chose his mark—the guardsman overseeing the loading process, his nose buried in a manifest and his back turned—and moved in. Sweeping his cane out to the right, he bumped into the guardsman on his left, letting a startled sound escape him, as though he hadn’t known the man was there. 

“Whoah, watch it!” the guardsman snapped, whipping around, the hand that wasn’t clutching the manifest going for his gun. But he took in Roman’s dark glasses and red-tipped cane, and let his hand drop. “Oh. Sorry,” he said, the gruff mercenary front falling away to awkward uncertainty. 

“No, I apologize,” said Roman, intentionally looking a little too far to the right of the man’s face. “I didn’t see you there.” 

The guardsman chuckled nervously at Roman’s joke. “That’s alright. But I think you must’ve gotten turned around. You’re not supposed to be up here. This is a private platform, civil guard only.” 

“Oh dear. I was with someone, but I seem to have lost him…” 

“There you are!” Qrow made his entrance right on queue. “What did I tell you about wandering off?” He turned to the bemused guardsman without waiting for a response from Roman. “Sorry about him. He wasn’t causing you any trouble, was he?”

“No…” said the guardsman, eyeing Qrow’s weapon uneasily. “But neither of you should be up here. It’s a private platform.”

“Prism civil guard, right?” said Qrow. “I was actually hoping to talk to you guys. I’m a Huntsman, freelance, and I heard from someone on the road a ways back that you were moving a lot of cargo through this area. Thought you might be interested in hiring an escort. You can’t be too careful, with all this unusual Grimm activity since the attack on Vale.” 

“A Huntsman?” The man’s interest was piqued. “We _have_ been getting some troubling reports today of a flock of nevermore sighted in the area…”

Qrow nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been hearing of a lot of sightings like that. Their migration routes seem to be shifting east.” 

“Let me see your registration card.” 

“Sure.” Qrow slipped the card out of his wallet and handed it over. 

The guardsman unhooked a card reader from his utility belt and ran Qrow’s card through it. His eyes widened almost comically when Qrow’s record came up. “Your stats are very impressive,” he said. “Why are you freelancing when you could have your pick of steady employment? The Schnee Dust Company’s always looking to hire talented Huntsman escorts for their shipments, and they’d pay you a small fortune.”  

Qrow waved a hand dismissively. “Their contracts are too restrictive. It’s in the title: I freelance ‘cause I like the freedom.”  

The man’s brow furrowed as he continued to scroll through Qrow’s record. “A lot of these jobs are marked ‘Classified’.”

Qrow leaned in and lowered his voice. “Between you and me, I was doing a lot of work for the Atlesian military that wasn’t strictly…above board. But now, with the borders closed, I’ve found myself in need of new clients.”  

The guard echoed Qrow’s conspiratorial tone when he replied, “Between you and me, your… _flexibility_ is a point in your favor.” He handed Qrow his card back. “You’d certainly be an asset on the train. What’s your going rate?” 

“Five thousand per day, but that goes down to three thousand if you keep me on more than a month.”

“Would you take three K on a trial basis?” 

Qrow blew out a breath, pretending to consider the offer. “I could do three-point-five,” he countered.  

The guardsman nodded. “I think that’s fair. I can make you a provisional offer, but you’ll have to officially negotiate your contract with the guard captain at Prism HQ.”

“Of course,” said Qrow. The guardsman offered his hand, and the two men shook on the deal. “Pleasure doing business with you.” 

The guardsman finally looked back to Roman, who’d had one ear on the conversation, but had let his gaze wander over the platform, observing. The guardsman cleared his throat. “This isn’t a passenger train, however. We can’t take on civilians.”

Qrow laughed. “Oh no, this is as far as he’s going. He just hired me to get him here safely. He’s got a sister around here somewhere.” Qrow put a hand on Roman’s shoulder. “I’ll just take you somewhere you can meet her, alright?”

Roman nodded. “Yes, that works just fine.”

“I’ll be right back,” Qrow told the guardsman.  

“Morado!” the guardsman barked. One of his colleagues dropped what he’d been doing and came rushing over. “Morado, this is Qrow, a Huntsman we’re taking on for long hauls. Qrow, Morado here will show you the ropes when you get back. Don’t take too long—we leave in ten minutes.”

“Understood.” Qrow and Morado exchanged a nod, and then Qrow led Roman away down the platform, keeping his hand on Roman’s shoulder to guide his poor blind companion. “You got it, right?” Qrow muttered under his breath. 

Roman held up the guardsman’s key card between two fingers. “See you on the train.” 

With a subtle glance over his shoulder to confirm that the guardsmen had returned their attention to loading the train, Roman slipped behind the last cargo car. Neo was waiting for him on the other side. Roman slotted the key into the card reader, and the door slid open with a quiet hiss of hydraulics. “Ladies first,” said Roman, stepping aside. 

Neo hopped up into the car, and Roman followed her, shutting the door behind them. There were no windows in the cargo cars, so when the door sealed shut, they were plunged into complete darkness. Roman removed Ozpin’s glasses, folding them and tucking them away in his coat pocket. There was a weight of memory to them—though not as much as the headmaster’s cane—that Roman didn’t like. He flicked open his lighter, the small orange flame illuminating the contours of crates stacked high all around them. Thanks to Qrow’s scouting, they’d known that this car had already been loaded in the previous village. Since the guardsmen were unlikely to venture all the way back here, it would make an ideal place to lie low for the journey. But there was one thing they had to take care of first. 

“I’d say we’ve got about seven minutes,” he told Neo.

Neo nodded, and then vanished before his eyes. He’d never met a thief or assassin who could match his sister for stealth—she could walk right past a dozen guardsmen, and they’d never know she was there. But if she and Roman worked quickly enough, they could finish their task while the train was still empty. 

“Ready?” he asked.

He couldn’t see her, but he heard two taps of her umbrella on the floor from somewhere close by. _Ready._  

They moved quickly through the cargo cars to the passenger section, Roman taking care to keep to the shadows and making use of his Semblance to move unseen through the cars that were still being loaded. He’d been picking up new tricks with his Semblance as quickly as he picked up other skills these days, as Ozpin had said he would. But he was saving his biggest trick for last. 

He rematerialized in the magazine car still trailing smoke, and beside him, Neo dropped her camouflage illusion. The gun turret loomed overhead, designed to be operated from above and fed ammunition from below. They were surrounded by crates of dust ammunition, and Roman walked over to one, plucking out one of the shells. 

He had cultivated an extensive knowledge of things mechanical over the years, studying blueprints and technical journals in his spare time. He never knew when being able to operate, fix, disable and/or hijack various machinery might come in handy in his line of work. So he happened to be familiar with the gun turret on the Quicksilver Class 5, and he knew that it was prone malfunction if not cleaned and oiled regularly, due to the buildup of refined dust powder from the ammunition. Therefore, to sabotage one without it looking deliberate, he simply had to exploit its preexisting design flaw.  

He handed the shell to Neo along with his cane, then hoisted her up onto his shoulders so she could reach the turret. She opened up the casing and poured the fine red dust powder into her hand. Puffing out her cheeks, she blew the dust up into the mechanics of the turret. Then she unscrewed the barrel of Roman’s cane and pressed the firing mechanism in the handle right up against one of the gaps between the turret’s panels. A single spark ignited a chain reaction, welding the turret’s inner workings together and rendering the whole thing inoperable. 

_‘We’ll be leaving them defenseless.’_

“They’ll be on their own doorstep,” Roman murmured. “If they can’t make it back to the city from there, then Prism will be better off hiring a more competent guard to replace them.” He prepared to set Neo down again. “Alright, let’s head back—“

Qrow’s muffled voice filtered in from just outside the car. “Do I get a key card like that?”

And another, which Roman assumed belonged to Morado. “You’ll be issued one back at HQ. Keep an eye out for one of these lying around, though. Lance thinks he must’ve dropped his somewhere. Replacements come out of our salaries, and they don’t come cheap.”

Neo swung down from Roman’s shoulders and pressed him back against the far wall, throwing up an illusion in front of them both right as the door to the outside hissed open, and Qrow and Morado stepped through. It was like looking out from behind a pane of one-way glass—they could observe without being observed. Morado walked over to a supply cabinet on the far wall and pulled out an armored vest like the ones all of the guardsmen were wearing. “You want one of these?” he asked Qrow. 

“Eh, army green’s not really my color. You got one in black?”

Morado gave him a funny look. “What, you want it to match your prom dress?”

Qrow laughed. “I’m just messin’ with ya. I’ve got something better, anyway.” As he spoke, he wandered casually through the car, but his eyes darted with purpose up to the gun turret above, noting the faint and quickly fading red glow from within. 

“Right. Y’know, all that Aura stuff sounds kinda hoaxy to me, like magic.”

_‘I resent that implication,’_ Ozpin muttered.

“It really works?” continued Morado.

“It really works,” said Qrow. “If I ever give you cause to punch me in the face, you’ll get a demonstration.”

“Why would I punch you in the face?”

Qrow shrugged. “I dunno, but it’s a reaction I seem to get a lot. Listen, why don’t you take me up to meet the conductor? I’d like to get a handle on how he runs this rig.”

“She, actually, but sure. Don’t get any ideas, though. She’ll beat you with a lug wrench if you so much as look at her anywhere but her eyes.”

Qrow chuckled. “Then maybe you’ll get your demonstration, after all.”

“Hey, it’s your funeral,” said Morado. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.” He led Qrow though the doorway leading to the rest of the passenger cars and the engine, and Roman and Neo slipped through the opposite doorway, back to the cargo cars.

A minute later, from their sanctuary among the food crates, they heard the rest of the guard board the train. Then, with a lurch and the scream of the whistle, they were moving. The train was on its way back to Prism. 

~ * ~

Qrow had estimated it would take the train about an hour and a half to reach the mountains, so with nothing more to do in the meantime, Roman and Neo had settled in for the long haul. Ozpin’s first-time jitters had kept Roman from relaxing fully, but that was probably for the best. Roman had lit a cigar—the glow from which had served as their only light source—and had spent the time practicing with his Semblance, blowing little smoke birds that disappeared into the shadows with a sweep of their dark wings. 

Some time later, Qrow appeared silhouetted in the doorway. “We’re almost there,” he said. “Let’s go.” 

Roman and Neo rose to follow him out, but stopped in their tracks when another form appeared behind Qrow in the doorway. “There you are, man, I was looking for…you.” Morado trailed off when he saw the other two people in the car, his hand going for his gun. Roman shoved past Qrow and slammed Morado up against the wall with his cane across the man’s windpipe. His rifle and one hand trapped behind him, Morado gripped Roman’s cane desperately with his free hand as Roman lifted him off his feet. He tried to cry for help, but started choking instead as Roman applied more pressure.

_‘Torchwick, stop.’_

“His death can be a tragic accident,” Roman growled. “No reason to arouse suspicion. But if we let him live, the guard will know exactly what happened here. It’s his life or the lives of all those villagers back there. Your choice.” 

_‘…No.’_ Ozpin seized control from Roman and placed a hand across Morado’s forehead. His vision tinged green as Morado’s eyes flared the same color. “Sleep. Dream. And forget.” 

At Ozpin’s command, Morado’s eyes slid shut, and his whole body went limp, collapsing to the floor as Ozpin stepped back.  

_‘Whoah. What was_ that _?’_

“Improvising,” said Ozpin. 

Qrow stepped forward, looking from Ozpin to the unconscious guardsman on the floor. But all he said was, “Neo and I will move him. You need to get going.” 

With a simple nod, Ozpin turned his back on the three of them and made for the nearest exit. He returned control to Roman as he walked, and Roman barely broke stride, he was so used to their switch-offs by now. He opened the door to the outside, and nearly lost his hat in the wind rushing past, caching it just before it sailed off over the edge of the sheer cliff below. Clamping it back down over his head, Roman climbed the steel rungs up to the top of the train and began to make his way swiftly but carefully forward to the engine. He could see the tunnel up ahead in the distance. They would be cutting it close. 

“You’ve got to teach me how to do that sometime,” he said, leaping across the gap between the cargo cars and the passenger cars. 

_‘_ That _will be the_ last _thing I teach you,’_ said Ozpin wearily. 

“Hey, you’re not out of juice already, are you? ‘Cause I’m counting on you—“ 

_‘I can do my part,’_ said Ozpin. _‘Just concentrate on doing yours.’_

Roman reached the engine and began climbing up the huge, black smokestack. As he climbed, he reminded himself it was only a matter of scale; otherwise, a smokestack was a lot like a cigar. 

He reached the top and stood on the edge, looking down into the darkness and letting the thick, black coal smoke fill his lungs, his blood, his soul. The wind was buffeting his face, billowing his coat, and he felt lighter with each breath. So he let himself fall back into the pillowy black, and let the wind carry him away. He could no longer tell where he ended and the massive amounts of black coal smoke pouring out of the smokestack began, and when he reached out to either side, holding a single, clear form in his mind, he spread a pair of vast, smoky black wings. Ozpin kept Roman’s emotions in check, lending him the focus he needed to complete the transformation. He felt nothing but complete freedom as he soared and wheeled through the air, sweeping around the train like a bird of prey zeroing in on its mark. 

He heard the cry rise up almost immediately. “Nevermore!” 

An alarm blared to life, and soon another voice yelled, “The turret’s jammed!”

Then, Qrow’s voice, “I’ll take care of it! Everyone get to the front of the train! If we make it to the tunnel, it won’t be able to follow us through!”

Qrow was standing on top of one of the cargo cars at the back of the train, his scythe drawn. Roman circled around once more, and then dove right at him, sweeping Qrow off his feet with a kick as Roman dropped out of the smoke. “Tag. You’re it.”

Qrow tumbled off the side of the train and down over the cliff. Meanwhile, Roman slid down into the gap between the cargo and passenger cars, the smoke dissipating around him. Neo was there to greet him with a smile. Then she raised her eyes and cast a massive illusion screen between the two sections of the train. When Qrow rose up a moment later in his crow form, beating his wings against the train’s backdraft, Neo magnified his reflection a hundred times up on her screen.

“Shit! The Huntsman’s down and it’s still on our tail!” another guardsman shouted. “Everyone get to the front! Increase speed and make for the tunnel!”

This was where timing was everything. The tunnel loomed up ahead. Roman slid his key card into the card reader beside a small digital control panel on the cargo car behind him, and the screen flickered to life, granting him access to various functions. He hit the command to uncouple the cars. 

An error message popped up on the screen.

“Processor Error?” he read. “What the hell does that mean? _Ugh_ , I’m going to _strangle_ Qrow,” he growled. How else could he separate the cars? The reinforced steel was too strong to blast through, Qrow and Neo were busy playing shadow puppets, and Ozpin assured him even before he could voice the question that no, he could not use his magic to “open sesame that shit.” Even if there was some small chance Roman could blast the cars apart, it was too close-range, and anyway, he needed to conserve his red dust crystals for the next step...

“Oh! Neo, I love you,” he told his very confused sister. From his coat pocket he withdrew one of the yellow dust crystals she’d stolen for him from that little dust shop a while back. “Your Aura’s stronger than mine, right?” he asked Ozpin.

_‘Yes...’_

“Good. Then I want you to smash this crystal into that access panel just below the screen. It should short-circuit the system and release the locking mechanism.” 

_‘You want me to electrocute myself.’_

“Hey, this’ll hurt me as much as it hurts you. If you’ve got a better idea, I’d _love_ to hear it.”

Ozpin grit his teeth and smashed the crystal into the access panel, his emerald Aura sparking and crackling as a powerful surge of electricity shot through him. The pain wasn’t as bad as being burned alive, which Roman knew thanks to Ozpin, but it was definitely up there. The important part, however, was that it worked. The steel locks connecting the cars released. But the first few cars of the train had already passed into the tunnel—their window was closing as fast as a speeding train. 

_‘Okay, hit the brakes!’_

Ozpin used his magic to slow the cargo section of the train, allowing the passenger section and all of the guardsmen on board to speed ahead into the tunnel. At the same time, he raised Roman’s cane and fired a barrage of red dust crystals up into the mountainside. The blasts shook free a whole shale from the cliff face, which crashed down over the mouth of the tunnel like a curtain, sealing it shut with fifty feet of hard granite. 

From inside the tunnel, it would have looked like the nevermore had crashed into the mountainside in its pursuit, and the cargo section of the train had been crushed under the rubble. Misfortune, rather than design. Not to mention, it would take Prism weeks, if not months, to clear away a cave-in of that magnitude with the kingdom’s resources in such disarray, during which time, the guardsmen already stationed in the villages couldn’t be recalled. And by the time the excavation work was finished, the repairs to the Vale communications tower certainly would be. It was some of Roman’s finest work, if he did say so himself.

Ozpin slowed their section of the train to a standstill, Neo dropped her illusion screen, and Qrow finally landed back atop the train with a victorious shout. “I can’t believe we pulled that off,” he cackled to the sky as he sprawled on his back.

Ozpin eased up on the friction he was applying to the wheels, allowing the gentle incline to start propelling the cars backward, down the mountain. It was literally all downhill from there, all the way to the last village at the edge of the foothills. Ozpin just had to keep them from picking up too much speed. 

He and Neo joined Qrow atop the train, soaking in the setting sun. The whole valley sprawled out below them as they trundled down the mountain. It was easy to forget, in that moment, all that still lay ahead, all that still hung, precariously, in the balance. They had come so close to Prism, and with it, their quickest means of getting to Haven. And instead they had blocked their own path and turned back.

“I share your surprise,” Ozpin said, taking a seat beside Qrow. Neo sat a little ways away, dangling her feet over the edge of the car and watching the passing scenery. 

_‘Wow. Really heartwarming, how much confidence you two had in me.’_

“I’ve gotta admit,” said Qrow, tucking his arms behind his head, “that was kinda fun. Y’know, since no one got hurt.”

Ozpin smirked. “It’s alright. You can admit you had fun playing nevermore.” 

Qrow grinned. “I mean, who even _thinks_ of that? These two are as crazy as Professor Oobleck.”

“And just as capable, it seems,” said Ozpin. Then, after a beat, “What did you do with Morado?”

“Oh, he’ll wake up really confused, wondering what possessed him to take a nap in a supply closet.” Qrow chuckled, but it sounded a bit forced. “I, uh, didn’t know you could do the mind control thing on _people._ That’s kinda dark, Oz.”

“It is an absolute last resort,” said Ozpin. “I have used it only in a few cases, when I could see no other option.”

Qrow nodded. “Good,” he said. “Although, Ironwood can be so pigheaded, I might be tempted to if I were you. Certain members of the City Council, too. You ever use it on someone you know?” 

“Never,” said Ozpin. 

But he was lying. 

~ * ~

Each time they approached one of the villages along the train tracks, Ozpin would slow the train, Neo would uncouple two of the cars, and Qrow would slice through the tracks with his scythe so both cars derailed just outside the village. Night had fallen, and all of the villagers had gone to bed with the sun, so their efforts were greeted with no fanfare, no cheers, no thanks. Nothing but the vast darkness and quiet of the sprawling countryside.

Roman’s only _slight_ miscalculation was just how long the return journey would take. The downhill slope meant Ozpin had to maintain almost constant friction on the wheels the whole way, or they risked picking up too much speed and derailing the entire train. By the time they were down to the last two cars and the final village lay ahead, Ozpin was completely exhausted. He tried to slow the cars once more as they approached the end of the line, but found himself unable to muster the energy for it. 

“I think,” he said, rather dreamily, “we’re going to crash.”

And with that, he and Roman blacked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roman, swan diving into the smokestack: YOLO!
> 
> Ozpin: Wrong.
> 
> Roman: Oh shit.
> 
> Later, Qrow, chewing the scenery: I have had it with these motherfucking Grimm on this motherfucking train!


	17. Unspoken

Roman slowly and groggily clawed his way back to consciousness. The first thing he became aware of was a familiar bone-deep ache all throughout his body—the aftereffects of Ozpin overtaxing himself magically. The second was the very _un_ familiar feeling of being carried. Bridal style. 

Roman cracked his eyes open and squinted up to determine the identity of the culprit who had the audacity to— Oh. It was Qrow. 

“Um,” said Roman, eloquently. 

Qrow looked down at him. “Torchwick?”

“Yes...”

“Can you walk?”

“I should think so.”

No sooner had Roman finished his sentence than Qrow dropped him unceremoniously on his ass. Roman was still spluttering in shock when Neo, who had been walking alongside them, pivoted and thwacked Qrow across the shins with her umbrella. 

“Ow, shit!” Qrow hissed, dropping to his knees beside Roman. “Why does that hurt so much?” 

She helped Roman to his feet and offered him his cane. For once, he actually used it to support himself as he stood, frustrated with how weak he felt, how unsteady he was on his feet. But seeing Qrow on his knees made him feel a little better. 

“Thanks, Neo,” he said. 

She nodded. _My pleasure._

He turned to Qrow and lifted the Huntsman’s chin with the tip of his cane. They locked eyes. Ozpin was still under, or he would have stopped Roman right there. With a twitch of his finger, Roman could be rid of Ozpin’s troublesome spy. In that moment, he and Qrow both knew it. But what they both knew, also, was that whatever Ozpin would do to Roman when he eventually recovered would be ten times worse, his supposed ethical code be damned. 

Qrow smirked, raising his chin a little further. “Well?”

Roman lowered his cane. “What happened?” They were back in the woods, and although it was dark, Roman thought he could see Crow hitched to a tree up ahead, right were they’d left him. 

Qrow got to his feet, wincing and brushing off his trousers. “Oz said we were going to crash, and then he collapsed, so I grabbed him and we jumped. The train station was wrecked, but the rest of the village is fine. They got their harvest back. Your plan worked.”

“Despite your best efforts,” muttered Roman. “You missed an opportunity, you know.”

“Huh?”

“You should’ve asked for payment up front.”

Qrow rolled his eyes. “I’m not a thief.” 

Roman raised an eyebrow.

“Normally,” Qrow amended.

It was a shame, really. Qrow had talent. “The civil guard are all a bunch of crooks, themselves," said Roman. "They’re basically a mafia.”

“And whatever happened to honor among thieves?” Qrow asked.

“It’s a myth.”

~ * ~

They decided to camp nearby for the night, to make sure no reprisals would fall on the village in the morning. And anyway, Roman was in no condition to travel. They built a fire, and Roman and Neo rolled out their bedrolls. Qrow always slept up in the trees in his crow form whenever they camped outside. Roman often wondered why he never fell off his perch when he was usually anywhere from tipsy to piss drunk by the end of supper. 

Tonight was no exception. Qrow had been at his flask ever since they’d completed the job, and was now sprawled back against a tree, humming contentedly to himself. The rest of his share of bland, preserved something-or-other that they’d purchased for the journey lay forgotten beside him, so Neo swiped it and polished it off. Not that she enjoyed the stuff any more than the rest of them did, but she didn’t often have cause to cast a massive illusion like that, and it took a lot out of her. She needed to replenish her energy. Roman did too, really, but the thought of eating any more of the stuff when he already felt physically ill made him want to retch. Thankfully, Neo had made them a kettle of hot chocolate after the meal, which, along with a good cigar, did wonders to settle Roman’s stomach and ease his headache—especially after he spiked his.

“By the way, the guard have probably reported you dead, so you’ll want to dispute that report at some point,” said Roman, blowing smoke up into the sky to mingle with the smoke from the fire.

Qrow waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, I know the procedure.”

Roman squinted at Qrow in the dim firelight. “How many times have you been reported dead?”

Qrow furrowed his brow and started counting on his fingers, so Roman abandoned the line of inquiry. “I’m really passing up the perfect opportunity to kill you, here,” he sighed. 

Qrow snorted. “Sure, if you want Oz to walk right up to Cinder and tell her that dress makes her look fat,” he chuckled. 

Roman shuddered involuntarily. “Go chew roadkill, Qrow.”

“Hey, that’s...that’s racist,” Qrow decided. “Not all crows eat roadkill.”

Roman blew a dark, smoky crow across the fire in Qrow’s direction. “Don’t they?”

Qrow scrunched up his nose, waving away the smoke from his face. “I don’t eat roadkill,” he muttered. “Filthy vultures eat roadkill. Fuckin’ assholes. I hate vultures.” He looked up at Roman across the fire. “You remind me of a vulture.”

“Please,” said Roman. “I don’t scavenge. I make the kill myself.”

Qrow huffed. “I’m surprised you and Raven didn’t get along better.”

Roman gave the matter a moment’s thought. “I think we’re a little _too_ similar,” he concluded. “I mean sure, she’s hot, and there’s no greater turn-on than competence in my opinion. But I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, ‘if you kiss a thief, count your teeth.’ I only had to wake up the morning after to find my car keys missing _once_ before I made it a personal policy never to take other thieves to bed. Now Raven, I might’ve made an exception for, just out of curiosity, but she gives off _major_ ‘fuck off and die’ vibes. I’m pretty sure if I made a pass at her, she’d make a pass at me with her sword. And anyway, I’m not really into masks. Does she wear that thing all the time, or just for business? I mean, it wouldn’t be a dealbreaker if she wanted to keep in on, but—“

“Gods, would you just _stop talking_?” said Qrow, flattening his hands over his ears. “That is _not_ what I meant by ‘get along’. For fuck’s sake, Torchwick, she’s my _twin sister!_ ”

Roman gave Qrow a slow once-over. “You’re twins? You know, I’ve always wondered what it'd be like to f— _mmmf_.” Neo clapped her hand over Roman’s mouth.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Qrow sighed, slumping back against the tree. 

Roman proceeded to have an entire conversation with his sister through a series of looks before she removed her hand from his mouth. She knew he was only saying whatever shit would aggravate Qrow the most, but she didn’t need to hear it. Once they had reached an agreement on that point, she stood, gesturing to the low-burning fire, and walked off. She was going to gather more firewood. 

“Speaking of Vale’s scum and villainy,” said Qrow as Neo disappeared into the dark, “is Adam Taurus in your evil rolodex?”

Roman grimaced. “I’ve had the misfortune of making his miserable acquaintance. Why?”

“‘Cause I’m gonna kill him if I get the chance.” 

Roman perked up at that. “Ooh, let me know if those plans pan out. I’ll make popcorn. You think you could take him?”

“I could fuckin’ take him,” Qrow slurred, with the confidence of the highly intoxicated. Still, Roman believed him. 

“That’s right, you were Ozpin’s star pupil,” said Roman, kicking back and sipping his cocoa. “I suppose all those _private lessons_ with the headmaster must have paid off.” 

Qrow narrowed his eyes. “You’re…implying things.” 

“Me?” said Roman, feigning shock. “ _Never_.” He slipped Ozpin’s glasses from his pocket and placed them on the bridge of his nose, lifting his chin so he could look down at Qrow imperiously. When he spoke, he smoothed out his voice to mimic Ozpin's soothing oratory. “Mr. Branwen, I am disappointed that you would be so quick to jump to conclusions about our new ally. I thought I taught you better than to fall prey to petty prejudices. I should like you to come see me in my office after class so we can discuss this attitude problem you’ve developed.”

Qrow’s eyes widened comically and his jaw went slack. “Shit,” he murmured. “You actually do a pretty good Ozpin.”

”I’ve had practice,” said Roman drolly. He removed the glasses and tossed them to Qrow, who caught them gingerly. “Come to think of it, I have Adam’s number in here somewhere.” He pulled out his scroll and found the entry in his contacts. “I’ll send it to you. Feel free to drunk text him to your heart’s content and annoy the shit out of him at all hours until you get the chance to end his sorry existence.”

Qrow’s scroll pinged, and he pulled it from his pocket, squinting down at the message on the screen. “Do you really have him listed as ‘Emo Furry’?”

“Mhmm. I never use real names on this thing,” said Roman, dangling his scroll in the air. “Just a little additional precaution.” 

Qrow smirked. “You got Cinder in there?” 

Roman hummed. “She’s ‘Flaming Bitch’. Naturally.”

Qrow snorted. “That’s a good one.” 

“Of course, it’s not like Cinder Fall is her real name, anyway…”

Qrow’s reaction was immediate. He scrambled to sit up straight, eyes wide. “I _knew_ it! What is it? You’ve gotta tell me. I have theories.” 

“She doesn’t even know _I_ know,” said Roman. He’d had his people do some quiet digging into her background when they’d first met, but his information brokers hadn’t been able to turn up much more than a name. Another red flag, in retrospect. It was embarrassing how much he'd been willing to overlook just because she was smoking hot and fucking fantastic in bed. “If she ever finds out that I told you, she’ll hunt us down and skin us both alive.” On the other hand, it would be so very satisfying, disseminating her secrets and demolishing her carefully constructed persona.

Qrow looked at him pleadingly, more puppy than bird in that moment. 

“Alright,” said Roman, leaning in over the fire conspiratorially. Qrow leaned forward eagerly. “Her real name is Cinderella Le Fresne.” 

“Holy shit.” Qrow grinned, biting his knuckle. “ _Cinderella_. That’s even better than I imagined.” 

“Isn't it just?” said Roman, smiling himself.

“I take back all the bad shit I’ve said about you. You’re a true asset to the team.”

Roman arched an eyebrow. “Just how shit-faced are you right now?” 

Qrow shrugged, still grinning. “A lot. Hey, I’m in there, too, right?” he said, gesturing to Roman’s scroll. “What’s my nickname?”

“You really want to know?”

“Yeah, I can take it. You’ve earned a free shot. What is it, ‘Drunk Asshole’? ‘Bird Brain’?”

“Those aren’t bad,” said Roman. “But I went with ‘Ozpin’s Bitch’.”

Qrow’s amusement evaporated immediately. “Alright, I’m changing your name in my scroll to ‘Dead Man Walking’.”

“Oh, please,” Roman drawled. “You do what he says and come when he calls. In what way is the moniker inaccurate?”

Qrow stared him down. “Because only one of us is Ozpin’s bitch, and it isn’t me.”

White-hot anger churned Roman's stomach, and he ground his teeth. But that was an argument he really didn’t want to get into with Qrow. So instead he threw the remains of his cigar into the fire and pulled the flask from his pocket, unscrewing the cap and pouring more whiskey into the dregs of his cocoa. 

Qrow cocked his head, observing. “Huh. Your flask looks just like mine.”

Roman sipped his concoction, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It took a surprisingly long time. But Qrow got there eventually, frowning and patting down his pockets before looking up at Roman, completely stupefied. “That _is_ my flask! When did you—?”

Roman smirked over the rim of his mug. “I’m a professional, sweetheart.”

“Alright, you’re a master thief,” said Qrow. “Now give it back.”

Roman considered the flask in his hand. “Oz thinks you drink too much. He won’t make me give it back. If you want it, I guess you’re just going to have to take it.” His mug empty, Roman put the flask to his lips and tipped it back. Qrow’s whiskey was cheap, nasty stuff, but it was strong, and that was just what Roman needed. 

“Hey!” Displaying more agility than he had since he’d started drinking that night, Qrow leapt to his feet and rounded the fire faster than Roman could scramble back. Qrow lunged for the flask, knocking Roman onto his back and pinning the hand gripping the flask to the ground above his head. 

Roman struggled briefly, but in the state he was in, he probably wouldn’t have been able to break free of Little Red’s grasp, let alone Qrow’s. Qrow tightened his grip on Roman’s wrist, and Roman hissed, but not entirely in pain. Glaring up into those intense crimson eyes, he supposed he could see what Ozpin saw in the other man. Qrow was handsome, in a roguish and slightly disheveled sort of way. His hair, when he hadn’t swept it back with his fingers, gave the impression that he’d just rolled out of someone else’s bed. And when he did sweep it back, he looked almost debonair. Not to mention, he had legs for days, and with those legs presently straddling Roman’s hips, it was easy to imagine them wrapped around his waist as he—well. It was an interesting notion. 

Only one way to find out whether it was a good idea. Roman wrapped his free hand around the back of Qrow’s neck and pulled him down. Caught entirely off-guard, Qrow offered no resistance. Roman kissed him, cautiously at first, in case he decided this was a bad idea after all, or in case Qrow decided to sock him in the jaw. But neither eventuality occurred, so Roman pressed on with more fervor. He rolled his hips, enjoying the gasp it drew out of Qrow in more ways than one, considering it meant the man finally opened his mouth. The kiss tasted like smoke, strong whiskey and chocolate, and was entirely too pleasant. So Roman bit down on Qrow’s lip, and the Huntsman shuddered above him. Finally, Qrow started kissing back in earnest, and while the alcohol made him sloppy, he more than made up for it with pure, scorching  _heat_. Roman arched beneath him, encouraging. 

He knew just how to kiss Qrow to get the reactions he wanted, just how to touch him to really rev his engines. Since Qrow appreciated a bit of rough handling, he tightened his fingers in Qrow’s hair and yanked his head back, sinking his teeth into Qrow’s exposed throat. 

Qrow moaned. “ _Oz_.”

Well, _that_ was a little insulting, but if Qrow wanted to fantasize about Ozpin while Roman did all the work, he supposed he didn’t really care.

And then it clicked. Of course he could see what Ozpin saw in Qrow. Of _fucking_ course. It was _Ozpin_ who wanted Qrow so desperately, _Ozpin_ who knew all of Qrow’s weaknesses, _Ozpin_ who thought Qrow hung the fucking broken moon—not him. Qrow wasn’t the one caught up in a fantasy. Roman was.

Roman sat up and shoved Qrow off of him, and Qrow landed just short of the fire, blinking up at the trees in shock. “Ozpin, _what the fuck?!_ ” Roman demanded.

_‘Qrow...’_ murmured Ozpin deliriously. _‘Are we dreaming?’_

“No we are fucking not!”

_‘Oh... Oh dear. Are we...drunk?’_

“That’s a little beside the point, don’t you think?!”

_‘No, it’s... It can blur the boundaries... Oh no. Please, let me—‘_

“No! You’ve done enough,” Roman growled.

While Roman and Ozpin argued, the look of confusion on Qrow’s face slowly gave way to one of absolute mortification. “Oh gods. I’m never drinking again,” he said hollowly, staring down at the flask clutched in his hand as though it had personally betrayed him. 

They both startled at the sound of a pile of sticks clattering to the ground, and turned to see Neo standing between the trees, just at the edge of the firelight. 

“Neo?” Roman’s voice came out embarrassingly high-pitched, so he cleared his throat before asking, “How long have you been there?”

Her stricken expression as she approached gave him his answer:  _Long enough_. She unsheathed her sword a fraction, looking at Qrow. _Do you want me to kill him?_

Roman shook his head. “That's sweet of you to offer, but he’s not the guilty party.” Roman raised his voice to address Qrow. “That said, if you touch me again, I will put a bullet somewhere vital.” 

Qrow grimaced. “ _You’re_ the one who started...all that.” 

“I wouldn’t have if I’d been in my right mind. I don’t go for older men,” Roman spat. 

“I’m forty-three,” said Qrow, weakly, still in shock. 

Ozpin finally took over in spite of Roman’s objections. “Qrow…” he said.

“What?” Qrow snapped. But his expression changed when he met Ozpin’s eyes. “Oz?” he asked quietly. 

Ozpin inclined his head. “Qrow, I’m so sorry.”

Qrow’s heated gaze cooled to ice. “ _This_ is what you’re sorry for?” 

“I…I don’t follow.” 

“I _buried_ you,” said Qrow, angrily swiping away the tears welling in the corners of his eyes. “And then you came back, and the first thing you said to me was ‘Give me a situation report, Qrow’, like everything was just business as fucking usual. Like nothing ever happened between us. Like it all just…died with you.” He locked eyes with Ozpin. “Well, did it?” 

Ozpin’s pain and sadness was a noxious elixir that made Roman feel even sicker. He wanted to vomit, but he couldn’t even do that with Ozpin at the controls. “No,” said Ozpin softly. “Of course not. My feelings for you haven’t changed. I knew this would be hard for both of us, but this is the way it has to be. I thought you understood—“

“Yeah, well maybe I don’t understand,” Qrow retorted. “He wants me. I want you. I’d say that works out fine.” 

Ozpin frowned. “I think that’s the alcohol talking, Qrow. And Torchwick doesn’t know what he wants right now.” 

_‘I wanna throw up.’_

“So, what?” asked Qrow angrily. “All of a sudden, you care about him more than me? You think he deserves your respect, after everything he’s done?” 

“I can’t just take over,” said Ozpin. “Stealing a life—no matter whose—is wrong, and I won’t do it again!” 

Qrow’s eyebrows knitted together as he searched Ozpin’s face, and a wave of cold dread rushed through Ozpin’s veins. He had said too much. 

“So you’ve done it before?” Qrow asked.

Ozpin grit his teeth. “ _Once_ ,” he forced out. “It was my first reincarnation, and I didn’t know what I was doing. But that’s no excuse. It was a wicked thing to do, and nothing good came of it.” Ozpin put a hand to his mouth, nearly succumbing to nausea himself. “Can we please have this discussion when we’re both sober?” 

Qrow threw his hands up in exasperation. “Apparently not, considering it’s taken us this long! But if you wanna put it off further, that’s _fine_.” Qrow stood, brushing himself off and slinging his weapon over his shoulder. 

“Where are you going?” 

“I feel like killing something,” Qrow said darkly. He turned his back on the dying fire and stalked off into the trees, tossing a clipped, “Don’t wait up” over his shoulder. 

“Be careful,” Ozpin called after him. But it was so quiet, Qrow probably never heard him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roman: *disgusted silence*
> 
> Qrow: *mortified silence*
> 
> Ozpin: *guilty silence*
> 
> Neo: *SOMEHOW EVEN MORE POINTEDLY SILENT THAN USUAL*
> 
>  
> 
> [A/N: I call this disaster triangle... *jazz hands* Cloqwork Orange.  
> I even made a playlist for it: https://8tracks.com/electricangels/scoundrels]


	18. Reckoning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention that I made a post of assorted visuals for this fic: http://urban-sorcerer.tumblr.com/post/182105091962

Roman expected to wake up the next morning with a clear head, and suitably embarrassed about his behavior the night before. Instead, he’d been plagued by a night of dreams about Qrow courtesy of one lovesick idiot. Most of them weren’t even steamy. They were just normal little moments: having coffee together on the balcony of the Beacon clocktower, trekking through the forest together on a hunting trip, lying in bed together in the morning and just kissing and talking about nothing of consequence. Roman almost missed the nightmares. This was all wrong, in the way that Ozpin’s glasses and cane were wrong, but much worse. Roman felt like he could trust this man when he couldn’t, felt like he’d known him for half a lifetime instead of half of month, felt like Qrow was his most trusted ally when he was really a dangerous adversary—felt like he was in love when he wasn’t. 

He didn’t have time to sort through any of it in his conscious mind, as he was rudely awoken by Qrow’s fucking massive sword-scythe-shotgun monstrosity plunging into the dirt an inch in front of his nose. Roman blinked at his own reflection in the blade, and then up at Qrow, covered head to foot in Grimm ash, as he walked past. 

“I’m sensing some hostility here,” muttered Roman.

_‘He’s angry with me, not you.’_

Roman had been practicing talking to Ozpin in his head so he didn’t look like a complete nut job walking through populated areas, and he continued their conversation silently. _‘I know_ that. _You dumped him after, what, twenty years of whatever the hell you two were? And you expected him to take it_ well _?’_

_‘I didn’t ‘_ dump’ _him. I_ died _. Normally, that marks the end of a relationship.’_

With Qrow’s next step, he was suddenly a bird, ruffling the ash out of his feathers like a dog would shake water out of its coat, and the next he was himself again, but considerably cleaner. 

_‘What about any of this is normal?’_ Roman thought. He pushed himself up on his elbows and looked over at Neo, who had also been startled awake by Qrow’s return. Dawn was only just breaking—he must have been away all night. “Qrow,” Roman greeted the Huntsman cautiously. 

Qrow turned to face him, brushing lingering traces of ash from his clothes. “Torchwick.”

Roman smirked. “Still not on a first name basis, huh?”

Qrow actually _blushed_. It was...interesting. For once, Roman had something resembling the upper hand. He may not be able to physically threaten Qrow with any credibility, but emotion and attraction could be equally powerful influencers. Perhaps he could leverage this ridiculous transference to his advantage. It was a double-edged sword of course, but now that Roman knew exactly what was going on, he could watch himself, and potentially handle Qrow with a bit more…finesse. 

“Shut up,” Qrow growled, uncapping and taking a swig from his flask. “Let me talk to Oz.” 

“I thought you said you were never going to drink again,” Roman drawled. 

Qrow laughed harshly. “I only say crazy shit like that when I’m drunk. Oz. Now.” 

Roman put his hands up placatingly. “Sure, sure. Although, he might have some trouble taking you seriously,” he tapped two fingers to the left side of his neck, “with that massive hickey you’ve got there.” He grinned. 

Qrow’s eyes widened, and he slapped a hand to the side of his neck. “Damn it, Torchwick, what are you, seventeen?” His expression suddenly took on a hollow, haunted edge. “How old are you, exactly?” he asked more quietly. "I mean, you've gotta be at least...thirty, right?"

Roman’s amusement thinned. “I’m twenty-seven.” 

Qrow squirmed uncomfortably for a moment, but then shook it off. “Whatever. Give me that stupid scarf you’re wearing.” 

“It’s a kerchief.”

“Do I look like I care? Just give it to me.” 

Roman slipped two fingers under the fabric and loosened the knot while holding Qrow's gaze. “Ask me nicely.” 

“ _Please_ give me your _kerchief_ before I _strangle_ you with it. How was that?” 

Roman huffed and threw the article of clothing in Qrow’s face. Disappointingly, Qrow caught it with his lightning reflexes, and tied it sloppily about his neck. He opened his mouth to demand an audience with Ozpin for the third time, but shut it with a click when he looked up to meet Ozpin’s concerned gaze.

“I thought we were going to talk when you were sober,” said Ozpin, though without judgement. He felt he shared the blame for Qrow’s state in this case. 

“I’m sober enough,” said Qrow. 

Ozpin turned to Neo, who sat watching the pair of them with silent intensity. “Would you do us the courtesy of giving us some privacy, Ms. Neo?” 

Neo shook her head adamantly, as if to say, _Never again._

Ozpin sighed. “Fair enough.”

Qrow merely cracked a wry smile, lowering himself to sit cross-legged at the end of Ozpin’s bedroll. “Reminds me of you chaperoning the school dances.” Qrow trailed off as both men’s faces fell, fond memories of Beacon darkened by recent events. “Everything went to hell so fast…”

“Yes,” Ozpin agreed. “But we’ll rebuild. Still, I am sorry that I...didn’t make it back to you.”

“Oh, don’t apologize for dying,” Qrow grumbled. “That just makes me feel even shittier. I get it, Oz. Really. I’m the one who owes you an apology. You’re dealing with a crisis, plus all of Torchwick’s bullshit on top of it, and all I could think about was myself. You know how I get when I’ve had a few too many. I think you once called it my ‘alcohol-induced persecution complex’.” He looked down at lightly trembling hands. “But your world doesn’t revolve around me, and that’s for the best. I’m a black hole.”

“Qrow, stop it,” Ozpin snapped, his tone yanking Qrow’s attention back to him as though on a tether. “Stop blaming yourself for everything you possibly can,” Ozpin continued, softer. “You’re right about one thing: this isn’t about you. If I could choose freely, I would choose you—over and over again. Throughout my lives, I have had mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, wives, husbands, friends—all chosen for me, lives already half-lived before I stepped into them. It is so very rare that I get to choose whom I share my life with, and I chose _you_ , Qrow. Yes, you can be a real nuisance sometimes, and I’m not talking about your Semblance. But the life I spent with you was the happiest I can recall being in a very long time. I loved you more than I’ve loved anyone in centuries, Qrow. And I still do.”

_‘Hey Oz, would you do me a favor? See my cane lying over there? Pick it up, put the barrel in my mouth and pull the trigger.’_

Qrow clenched his jaw, breaking Ozpin’s unflinching gaze. “If you really still feel that way, then this is stupid,” he whispered, almost more to himself than to Ozpin. But then he looked back up at Ozpin and said, “You can do whatever the hell you want to.”

Ozpin sighed. “No, Qrow, I can’t.”

Qrow’s anguished expression hardened. “You can’t seriously be concerned for _Torchwick_. He’s a cold-blooded murderer, Oz. By all rights, his life is forfeit. It's  _your_ life now, not his. So what’s stopping you from living it the way you want to?”

Neo looked as though she were about to thwack Qrow with her umbrella again (or possibly the sword this time), but Ozpin's next words stopped her.

“I am,” said Ozpin, almost forcefully. But he was the one to break eye contact this time. “The first time—the _only_ time—that I stole a life was because someone I loved convinced me that because I had power, I could act as I saw fit. I robbed my host completely of his autonomy, and over time, I became someone I didn’t recognize. I did terrible things, Qrow, all because my conception of right and wrong had become so twisted around this one person. The worst mistakes I ever made, I made for love. I won’t walk that path again. One lifetime has to be enough.”

Roman caught just the barest flicker of a woman with long, ghostly blonde hair, before the memory was snuffed out. But there was something familiar about her... Of course there was. She was a memory, after all. Ozpin’s past was like a dream that Roman had awoken from, and couldn’t quite recall—mysterious, yet familiar. Roman wanted to remember, to learn all that Ozpin was keeping from him, and yet he didn't grasp at the fading memory. If a man's life was his past, then who would Roman be when he finally  _did_ remember? 

“Oz,” said Qrow, reaching out for Ozpin’s hands. Ozpin let Qrow take them in his. “I don’t know what you did in the past, but you _know_ me. I would never try to change you, or ask you to do anything you’d regret like that. But Torchwick might.”

“I am under no delusions about Torchwick’s manipulative nature,” said Ozpin. “And yet, it is you who would have me play god with the lives of others.”

_‘Uh, I call bullshit. What exactly do you think you’ve been doing with me all this time? Making mild-mannered suggestions? “Oh, Roman, why don’t we go fight my evil psycho ex who’s hell-bent on starting the apocalypse? But, you know, only if you want to”.’_

“That’s something you’ve been doing ever since I met you,” said Qrow at the same time. “You’re good at it, and the world needs it. I don’t think there _are_ any gods left in this world, Oz. You’re all we’ve got. So if you fill the role, then I’d say the world is damn lucky for it. You work in the shadows, you never ask for thanks. You do it for everyone’s good but your own. Can’t you let yourself do one selfish thing?” he asked, squeezing Ozpin’s hands. 

_‘Hey, hey, I get a say in this, don’t I? My say is no. Unlike you, I have standards.’_

“You don’t know how much I want to,” said Ozpin, but even as he said it, he pulled away. “But it’s not my decision to make.”

Qrow’s face fell, and Roman’s satisfaction mixed with Ozpin’s lancing heartache in a dizzying cocktail. “Y’know, there’s such a thing as being _too_ noble, Oz.”

“Is there?” said Ozpin faintly. 

Qrow’s vulnerability was shuttered now, his usual facade of nonchalance back in place. “I just hope you know I won’t give up on you that easily. Don't tell me you've forgotten how persistent I was the first time around.”

Ozpin smiled wistfully. “It was like trying to outmaneuver my own shadow. But I’m afraid this time is different. It would be deeply unethical and in violation of my principles—“

“Yeah, you said all that the first time, too,” said Qrow dismissively. "You treated me to a whole lecture about the ethics of teacher-student relationships.”

Ozpin blushed lightly. “Ah yes, I recall you didn't listen to a word of it. And you were able to sway me despite my better judgement. But I mean it this time, Qrow,” he said, tone verging on helpless, pleading with Qrow not to keep pushing. 

Qrow raised his hands in acquiescence. “Alright, consider the issue dropped. For now,” he added—a warning. A promise. 

Ozpin opened his mouth as if to argue, but then thought better of it. “Very well,” he said simply. “Then it’s time we were on our way.”

Neo released a quiet sigh of relief as the tension broke, and she finally allowed herself to turn her back on both men as she set to work packing up camp. With Ozpin’s help, they were packed and ready to depart in no time. He and Neo sat astride Crow, while Qrow rolled his shoulders, readying himself for another long flight. 

“Qrow, you haven’t slept,” said Ozpin. “You’ll drop out of the sky in the state you’re in. Ride with me?” He held out his arm like a peace offering.

Qrow tilted a crooked, tired smile his way before he landed on Ozpin’s arm in a flutter of feathers. Ozpin stroked beneath Qrow’s beak with two fingers fondly, before letting Qrow hop onto the saddle between his legs and settle there, closing his eyes and tucking his beak under his wing to doze. Or at least pretend to.

Qrow could end up being more trouble than Roman anticipated. 

~ * ~

They rode out past the ruined train station, where it seemed the whole village was working together to recover the crates of food from the derailed cargo cars. Unlike when they’d first arrived in the village, there was a breath of life about the place as men and women exchanged cautious smiles and words of optimism, and children laughed and played in the wreckage. Even the guardsmen, likely having been radioed about the tunnel blockage and the extension of their post in the village indefinitely, were helping unload crates. Thea was standing atop one of the cars organizing the recovery effort, and she was the only one who saw the travelers on the dark horse at the edge of the village. She nodded once, the message clear: _Thank you._

Ozpin tipped his hat, and then turned the horse about and cracked the reins. They rode east along the train tracks to meet the rising sun. 

~ * ~

By the time they reached the next village along the tracks, the derailed train cars there had already been emptied out, and people were out in the streets celebrating their good luck. They rode right on by, only stopping in the third village a little after noon. There, the atmosphere had calmed, and the people seemed to have settled back into their routines, albeit with a whistle here and a smile there. Hard times still lay ahead for them—Prism had taken a lot before Roman's misfit little crew had put a stop to the operation, and taken something back. But now, they stood a chance.

Ozpin lifted Qrow’s wing delicately with one finger as they reached the outskirts of the village. “Qrow, we’re stopping for lunch.”

Qrow simply turned his head and buried it under his other wing, making a gravelly sound of reluctance.

“Food, Qrow,” said Ozpin, caressing Qrow’s feathers with gentle insistence. 

Qrow pushed back against Ozpin’s hand, almost purring in that strange, broken way crows do. But then he roused himself and flapped gracelessly off the horse, transforming in mid-air to land, swaying slightly, on two feet. He yawned widely, scrubbing at his eyes. “Food,” he concurred, sounding as though he were still half asleep. 

Ozpin smiled. 

_‘Hey. Remember what we talked about.’_

Ozpin’s smile faltered. _‘I won’t forget,’_ he answered silently. 

He urged the horse onward through the village until they found the tavern. There, he and Neo dismounted, and Qrow hitched the creature to the post outside. They were about to head inside when a shadow passed over them, and a raven’s deep-throated cry echoed through the quiet street. Qrow and Ozpin stopped in their tracks, Neo slowing and looking back when she realized they were no longer with her. A big, black raven alighted on the balustrade, staring at them with intelligent bloodred eyes. 

“Shit,” said Qrow. “What does _she_ want?”

The raven _cawed_ again, and flew into the tavern. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week on Dr. Oz: 
> 
> Qrow, flopping down on Ozpin's therapy couch: I have abandonment issues because of you. 
> 
> Ozpin, sighing: I'm sorry Qrow, but I can’t offer you counsel if your grievance is with me.
> 
> Qrow: Just tell me what I can do to win you back.
> 
> Ozpin: I already told you, it’s not my decision to make.
> 
> Qrow: So what you’re saying is, I need to seduce Torchwick.
> 
> Ozpin: NO, THAT IS NOT— 
> 
> Qrow: Got it. Thanks, Oz! *flies out through the window*
> 
> Ozpin: WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING?


	19. Killers and Thieves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N: Hey guys, I’m so sorry for the unannounced hiatus! I’ve got a lot of stuff going on in my life right now, and this fic had to go on the back burner for awhile. Usually, I’m a fairly slow writer, and the pace I was putting out updates was just unsustainable for me in the long run. Not to worry, I won’t abandon this fic, but realistically, updates from here on out are going to be less frequent than they were before. I hope you’ve stuck with me! Your comments have been incredibly motivating!]
> 
> [A/N 2: As you can probably tell from this chapter, there will be a little more overlap with the show going forward as everything converges, but the chronology won't be the same and events won't all unfold in the same way, since Roman has his own very strong opinions about how things should go :) ]

“Qrow, find out why she’s here,” said Ozpin. Qrow nodded. “Torchwick, take over.”

_‘You know, I think I’d rather sit this one out for once.’_ But he was left with no choice when Ozpin retreated regardless. He looked to Qrow warily. “On a scale of one to fratricide, how much does she hate your guts?”

“Whatever it is, Ozpin ranks higher,” said Qrow. 

“Oh. _Great_.”

“Come on. There’s no avoiding her.” Qrow trudged up the steps into the tavern like a man walking to the gallows. Neo watched him pass with grave concern, and quickly assumed a position close at Roman’s flank as he followed Qrow inside. 

Raven was nowhere to be seen. The tavern wasn’t a large establishment, but it was unusually busy for the hour, thanks to the celebratory atmosphere in the village. A lot of the local farmers had taken refuge from the midday sun, and were buying each other rounds with drunken praises to the gods for providing them with enough food to make it through the winter.

“The gods, my ass,” muttered Roman under his breath.

_‘Hush.’_

“I’m not a damn child,” Roman growled. But he did, in fact, shut up. 

A waitress approached them, taking their measure with a slow once-over. Roman did the same. When their eyes met, she winked at him. “Your lady friend’s waiting for you upstairs,” she said, indicating a set of stairs at the back of the tavern leading up to a secluded balcony. “Pretty red eyes, like yours,” she said to Qrow. “She told me top shelf for the dapper one, bottom shelf for the scruffy one, and whatever the young lady likes.”

Qrow opened his mouth to object to her immediate identification of him as “the scruffy one,” but one glance at Roman straightening out his hat and smoothing down his lapels, and Qrow gave up with a defeated sigh.

Neo scribbled her order in her notepad and tore out the page, handing it to the waitress. “Gin and tonic. Got it,” she said.

Roman would have loved nothing more than a smooth bourbon, especially on someone else’s Lien, but unlike Qrow, he actually had the impulse control of an adult. If alcohol “blurred the boundaries” between his consciousness and Ozpin’s, as Ozpin had said, then Roman wasn’t going to take his chances. As long as he got his nicotine fix, he could live without alcohol. At least until he re-learned his limits. 

“That’s very kind of her, but I’ll just have a glass of water.”

The waitress favored him with an amused look. “How virtuous.” Roman’s answering smile may have been more of a grimace. “I’ll go ahead and give you top, then,” she told Qrow with a sultry smile. As she sauntered away, she sighed, just loud enough for them to hear, “Lucky gals.”

Neo retched silently. 

~ * ~

There was only one occupied table on the upper balcony. And there Raven was, sitting and watching them impassively as they approached. Her mask was resting on the table. She had a surprisingly pretty face. Roman had half suspected she wore the mask to hide some gruesome disfigurement, but now he theorized it was quite the opposite. Qrow had said they were twins, but Raven looked years younger, closer to Roman’s age than Qrow’s. And it was hard for young, attractive people to command respect in positions of leadership. Roman could sympathize. The number of times he’d had to bloody his cane because a subordinate had had the gall to proposition him was greater than he could count on one hand. If he’d been any less vain, and hadn’t had to conduct business with normal city dwelling folk, he might have taken to wearing a horrifying Grimm mask himself.

“You’re keeping interesting company these days, brother,” she greeted Qrow when the three of them joined her at the table. Her lips turned up in a slight smile when she looked to Roman and Neo. “Roman. Neopolitan. This is an unexpected pleasure. I heard you were dead.”

“If you credited every rumor about us, you’d think we were raised by beowolves, too,” said Roman smoothly. Yes, Raven intimidated him, but he would never show it. And after Cinder, Raven seemed positively bubbly. “But it _is_ a pleasure, Raven. It’s funny, we were just talking about you.”

“Oh?”

Qrow elbowed him sharply under the table, and Roman winced. “What do you want, Raven?” Qrow asked.

She feigned hurt. “A girl can’t just catch up with her family and friends?”

“She can. But you’re not.”

The waitress from earlier came to deliver their drinks, but she sensed the quiet tension at the table, and didn’t stick around to chit chat. Roman sipped his water, wishing he were just about anywhere other than between the murder bird twins. He realized he could, theoretically, vanish in a puff of smoke, but Raven would likely take it as an insult, and besides, he would never leave Neo in the lurch like that.

“Water, Roman?” said Raven, pointedly ignoring her brother. “I’ve never known you not to take advantage of someone else’s generosity.”

“Your brother’s a walking cautionary tale against alcoholism,” said Roman. “I’m laying off the stuff for awhile.” He lit a cigar instead, breathing deep. 

Raven smirked. “So you _are_ doing some good in the world, after all,” she said to Qrow. 

Qrow was obviously annoyed at the pair of them, but he chose to take Raven’s back-handed compliment straight. “Meanwhile, you’ve been busy making it even worse. I’ve seen your wake of devastation.”

Raven’s steely gaze betrayed no remorse. “I lead our people now. And as leader, I will do everything in my power to ensure our survival.”

“Yeah. All of this chaos and fear in the aftermath of the battle… I bet these little villages are easy prey, huh?” 

“They are,” replied Raven cooly, “as a matter of fact. The tribe needs to eat, too. Or don’t you care what happens to your own people?”

“They’re killers and thieves,” Qrow spat. 

Raven stared at him incredulously. “And just what is your business with Roman and Neo? Killing and thieving is their specialty.”

Qrow floundered, so Roman interjected quickly. “He had a job for us. Take from the haves, give back to the have-nots. Clichéd, but a job’s a job. We’re a little less picky these days, with the city in shambles.”

“So all this,” Raven said with a sweeping gesture at the celebratory patrons below, “is your handiwork?”

Roman shrugged, blowing smoke out over the balcony. “I’ll admit it’s not my usual M.O.”

“Careful, Roman, or you might sully your bad reputation,” said Raven. 

Roman chuckled. “I’ll just have to make up for it, then,” he said, holding her gaze. 

Alright, so he and Raven actually did flirt on occasion. They both knew the other didn’t mean it. It was simple instinct for Roman to attempt to unbalance the other person if he felt off-balance himself. As for Raven, she probably just enjoyed toying with people. Even Neo knew not to take it seriously by now. Qrow, however, was glaring daggers at him, so perhaps this wasn’t the time.  

“If you’re in the market for it, it just so happens that I recently acquired a shipment of Vacuese military rifles,” said Raven. “More than I can make use of, certainly.”

“Hey! I’m right here!” Qrow snapped. “Don’t talk shop in front of me!”

Roman ignored him, too. “I’m interested,” he said. Moving some high-profile merchandise would be one of the quickest and easiest ways to reestablish his enterprises in Mistral. Assuming he could talk Ozpin into a bit of light arms dealing. 

_‘I’ll admit I’m curious as to how you think that conversation would go.’_

“So you’re operating independently again?” Raven asked. She was asking about Cinder in the same way Ozpin had. Because she was in on the bigger picture. 

Roman leaned back in his chair and spread his hands. “It’s all me,” he said, hating the fact that it still wasn’t true.

“Good,” said Raven. “You, I can deal with.”

“You two done catching up?” Qrow asked pointedly. “Or should I just go?”

Roman detected a definite hint of jealousy in his tone, despite his attempts at brusque indifference, but whether it was because Roman had a better relationship with Qrow’s sister than Qrow did, or because Qrow was feeling territorial again, Roman couldn’t say. 

Neo scribbled a quick note and slid it across the table to Raven. Since she passed it face-up, Roman read it as well, as she intended him to. _Sorry about the girl_ , it said. Ah yes, the brash blonde who’d developed an irritating habit of beating up his nightclub staff. Neo had told him about how Raven had come to the girl’s rescue during the underground train fiasco. Roman had his suspicions about her, but hadn’t had the chance to look into them, considering he’d been “caught” and thrown in jail immediately afterward.

Raven read the note and then crumpled it up carelessly. “No need to apologize,” she told Neo. “I know it’s only ever just business with you two. And my daughter has a bad habit of sticking her nose in other people’s business.”

“That—girl,” Roman substituted the word hastily for one that was significantly less kind, “is your daughter? I can’t say I see the resemblance.” Roman had thought perhaps cousin, at most. Raven never struck him as being particularly motherly.

“She takes after her father,” said Raven grimly, clearly indicating that that was all she was going to say on the matter. 

“Did you know Yang lost her arm?” Qrow asked, looking down into his whiskey rather than at his sister.

Raven just looked irritated. “That’s not—“

“Rhetorical question,” snapped Qrow. “I know you know. But you weren’t there to save her this time. Because she only gets to slip up once. That was your rule, right?” He glanced up to meet her gaze. “After that, you just keep carrying on like your own daughter doesn’t exist.” 

Raven’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “That’s awfully hypocritical, coming from you.” 

Qrow stiffened. “It’s not the same. I’m protecting her.”

“You _abandoned_ her. Just like you abandoned the tribe. Family means nothing to you.”

“I never abandoned her,” Qrow growled. “I’ve _always_ looked out for her, even if she didn’t know it.” The strangled note of emotion in Qrow’s voice disappeared as he continued, “But the tribe is different. They were never our family. They were just using us.”

“They were more family than we ever had,” Raven hissed, leaning in over the table and grabbing Qrow’s wrist as he raised his glass to his lips. “They took us in when we had nothing and raised us as their own.”

“Yeah, kids make great thieves,” said Qrow, astoundingly cool in the face of Raven’s wrath. “Torchwick’ll tell you that much.”

Roman startled at the sound of his name. “I’m not touching this,” he said, leaning away from the table. Privately, he asked Ozpin, _‘So Qrow has a daughter, and she’s not_ your _daughter?’_

_‘We spent some time apart. He wanted to start a family. I did not.’_

_‘So, what happened to the kid?’_

Ozpin didn’t answer. 

“You think the tribe was using us?” Raven said. She released her brother’s arm with a contemptuous sneer. “What about Ozpin? What he did to us, and had us do for him?”

“He didn’t force us,” said Qrow. 

“We were kids.”

Qrow scoffed. “No, we weren’t. We stopped being kids when we joined the tribe. Oz just wanted us to do some good in the world. You used to believe in him.”

Raven shook her head. “No. I believed in _you_. Until I learned you’d become a besotted, sentimental fool, just as caught up in Ozpin’s fairytales as the man himself.”

“They’re all true.”

“ _Parts_ of them are true,” Raven countered. “But real life doesn’t unfold like a storybook. It’s the person telling the story who creates the narrative.” She searched Qrow’s eyes only to find them hard and impenetrable. “But you’ll keep following him even in death, won’t you?”

“Oz isn’t dead,” said Qrow, ignoring the dangerous look Roman shot him out of the corner of his eye. 

“No, of course not,” said Raven. “I imagine you’ll be hearing from him soon.” Her eyes narrowed as she carefully examined Qrow’s neutral expression. “If you haven’t already.”

To Qrow’s credit, he didn’t bat an eyelash. But Roman didn’t like the direction this conversation was going. He cleared his throat. “You two seem like you’re having a swell time catching up, but if you’ve got business with us, Raven, maybe we could get to it? Kill two birds with one stone here?”

Qrow and Raven turned identical glares on him, and yeah, okay, poor choice of words in present company. Roman took a long drag from his cigar and looked away, blowing smoke out over the balcony. 

“He’s right,” said Raven. “This isn’t a social call.”

Qrow snorted. “I figured.”

“One of you must know,” continued Raven. “Does she have it?”

The question couldn’t have been more vague, and yet Roman and Qrow both knew exactly what she was asking. “I thought you weren’t interested in all of that,” said Qrow. 

“I just want to know what we’re up against.”

“And which ‘we’ are you referring to?” Qrow asked. 

Raven gave him a look that clearly warned she was one more smart-ass remark short of wringing Qrow’s neck. Roman could empathize. Why Qrow insisted on antagonizing the lovely lady with the large sword, Roman hadn’t the foggiest, but if he kept doing it, Roman would cut out his tongue before he brought Raven’s wrath down on all of them. Roman glanced over at Neo, carefully observing both parties and tensed to react if necessary, but in such a subtle way that only Roman could recognize it. Perhaps being mute would improve Qrow’s handling of delicate social situations. Roman might be doing him a favor.

Qrow surprised them all by backing down with a heavy sigh, and uttering the first vaguely kind words to his sister since they’d sat down. “You should come back, Raven. The only way we beat her is by working together. All of us.”

Roman rolled his eyes beneath the brim of his hat. Hypocritical indeed, extending the olive branch to Raven when her tribe of bandits regularly destroyed entire villages, and yet demanding that Ozpin throw Roman to the wolves after he’d turned one itty bitty robot army against a mostly evacuated and well-defended city. 

_‘You’re understating events somewhat.’_

_‘Please. She’s killed at least a dozen times as many people as I have.’_

_‘More than your entire organization?’_

_‘The mafia is a business. And it’s bad business to go around killing indiscriminately.’_

Ozpin seemed to cede the point. Still, he said quietly, _‘I believe Raven was a good person once.’_

_‘We were all good people once.’_

Raven stared incredulously at her brother. Finally, she said, “You’re the one who left.” Qrow flinched, and Raven twisted the knife, seeming to take pleasure in her brother’s misery. “I told you Beacon would fall and it did. I told you Ozpin would fail and he has. Now you tell me. Does. Salem. Have it?”

Qrow scowled and said nothing. Raven looked to Roman and Neo. “I told you, we’re out,” said Roman. “That’s none of our business anymore. Not that Cinder bothered to loop me in half the time,” he grumbled.

His genuine resentment sold the lie. Raven nodded. “If you don’t know where the Relic is, then we have nothing left to talk about,” she told Qrow. She stood, reaching for her mask. “Roman, Neo, I hope we can do business again in the future. You have my number.”

Qrow stood abruptly, placing his hand down on Raven’s mask before she could put it on. Her free hand flew to the hilt of her sword, but didn’t draw it. 

“The tribe has never left that kind of destruction in its wake before,” said Qrow. Now that he mentioned it, it was rather unusual, the extent of the damage to that village they had passed through. 

Raven glanced away. “We couldn't have known the Grimm would set in as quickly as they did,” she murmured.

“I’m not talking about the Grimm,” said Qrow. Raven’s head shot up, meeting Qrow’s intense gaze with wide eyes. “And I’m not talking about you,” he continued. “I don’t know where the Relic is, and I don’t know where the Spring Maiden is, either. But if you do, I need you to tell me.”

Raven wrenched her mask from Qrow’s grasp. “And why would I do that?”

“Because without her, we're all going to die.”

Raven’s frown twisted into a vindictive sneer. “And which ‘we’ are you referring to?” Qrow’s last-ditch hope of reaching his sister died visibly on his face, while Raven’s expression turned unreadable. “When you next see him, give my sympathies to whichever new, unfortunate soul he’s dragged into his crusade. Ozpin is a curse I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”

With that, she turned her back on her brother, drew her sword, and with it, slashed open the fabric of space. She stepped through the glowing red portal without a backward glance, and it silently closed behind her, not so much as an echo of a footstep lingering after she was gone. 

“Well, that was fun,” Roman deadpanned.

Behind them, their friendly waitress from earlier dropped the tray of fresh drinks she’d been taking to them, and stared at the wall into which Raven had disappeared. 

Qrow looked back over his shoulder forlornly at the spilled whiskey and said, “I’ll take another one of those, when you get the chance.”

~ * ~

They ate lunch mostly in silence. Qrow was brooding. Neo was, well, Neo. But Roman was actually engaged in a rather interesting conversation.

_‘I can’t put my finger on it, but there was something familiar about her,’_ said Ozpin. The matter was irritating him, so naturally, he was irritating Roman.

_‘Uh, you two know each other. Have I missed something? You’re not going senile on me, are you? How old are you, actually? I mean, how old were you? When you died? Most recently?_ Gods _, you’re a complicated man.’_

_‘Not Raven herself, something about her...’_ He sighed, setting the matter aside to mull over later, and probably drive Roman nuts while doing it. _‘But to answer your question, I was young when I died this time around. About forty-five, I think.’_

_‘Yikes, you went grey early.’_

_‘In my twenties. It was a blessing, really. I doubt I would have had any credibility as headmaster of Beacon if I’d looked my age.’_

Roman ran a hand through his hair anxiously. _‘I told you you worry too much. Don’t do that to me. Take up meditation or something. I’ll give you an hour a day.’_

Ozpin chuckled. _‘It was genetic, not stress-related. My mother’s hair went white at fifteen.’_

That piqued Roman’s interest. _‘Your mother, huh? So the man I’m talking to now, is he the great and powerful wizard? Or the guy whose mom had white hair?’_

Ozpin was silent for a beat longer than was natural in a conversation. _‘We’re one and the same, now,’_ he said, finally. _‘I’ve told you, that’s how this works. We will meet somewhere in the middle.’_

_‘Except it isn’t really the middle, is it?’_

_‘No,’_ Ozpin admitted. _‘But with how far apart we’re starting, I suspect it will be closer to the middle than it has ever been before.’_

It wasn’t a comforting thought for either of them. 

~ * ~

Since they had collapsed the mouth of the only tunnel through the mountains, they had to go around. It was another half day’s ride until they could see the lights of Prism City down in the valley as the sun sank behind the mountains’ jagged peaks, casting fanged shadows across the land as though a set of massive jaws were closing over the world. 

They would make their way into the city in the morning, when they would hopefully be able to gain passage aboard an airship to Mistral. But for now, they made camp beneath a rocky outcropping in the foothills. 

Qrow had only resumed his human form moments before his scroll chirped with a new message. “Huh. We must be out of the blackout zone.” He fished the device out of his pocket. The color drained from his face as his eyes flicked over the screen. “I should have gotten this _yesterday._ ” He looked up at Roman. “Ruby’s gone. Tai says she left with the rest of team JNPR. They’re on their way to Mistral.”

Roman was about to inform Qrow that he’d rather Red and her rabid cohorts go to hell, but Ozpin took over, reaching out to clasp Qrow’s hand that held his scroll in slightly trembling fingers. The tremors stilled under Ozpin’s touch. “Go,” said Ozpin softly. “Make sure they reach Haven safely.” His other hand hovered uncertainly at Qrow’s side for a moment before he lifted it, cupping Qrow’s cheek so delicately, he was hardly touching him. They gazed into each other’s eyes, saying things they could not or would not say aloud. “And come back to me.”

Qrow leaned into Ozpin’s touch, closing his eyes. “I always do,” he murmured. Then, with a flutter of feathers, he was gone. 

Roman should have felt relieved, watching Qrow fly away for the last time, not to return for gods knew how long. Instead, he felt as though he’d just lost something important. But no, that was Ozpin.

Wasn’t it? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roman, texting under the table: I don’t like the way this conversation with Raven’s going. Ask her where she got her sword or something.  
> Neo, texting back while sitting right next to him: New scroll, who dis? 
> 
>  
> 
> [A/N 3: I know RT semi-officially debunked the fan theory that Ruby is Qrow's daughter but. Come on.]


	20. Refraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you missed it, go back and check out the super cute fanart Tumblr user givemeahug made for chapter 12!
> 
> And if you're into AMVs, I made one for Roman & Neo: https://youtu.be/mxf4_ItuzVo

“He stole my kerchief!” Roman exclaimed the following morning. 

_‘I’m sure he just forgot he was wearing it.’_

“He’s a dirty, rotten thief!” Roman snarled, whipping out his scroll and hurling profanity-laden accusations at Qrow via text. Qrow didn’t respond—possibly because he wasn’t presently possessed of opposable thumbs. 

_‘Sometimes I wonder if you hear yourself.’_

Roman ignored Ozpin. It was no wonder he felt as though Qrow had taken something important with him when he’d left. He _had_. The bastard. At least it explained the nagging feeling of loss. He missed his kerchief. Not Qrow.

Once they had packed up camp and were about to set off toward the city, he and Neo exchanged a contemplative look. “Nothing too flashy,” Roman decided. “We’re just passing through. No need to attract attention, especially from our friends in the civil guard.”

_‘What are you talking about?’_

“We’re Vale’s Most Wanted, Oz,” Roman muttered. “We’re not just going to ride into Prism looking like this.”

_‘Like…what?’_

“Ourselves.”

Neo held out her hand, and Roman took it in his. As he did so, a finely tessellated illusion matrix raced up his arm and across his body, shimmering and changing colors. When it settled a moment later, Neo waved her other hand, and a tall strip of mirror materialized in front of him for Roman to inspect her work. 

Roman screeched and punched through the mirror, shattering it into pieces. Neo dropped his hand and nearly fell on her ass in a silent fit of laughter at his reaction. He shot her the most venomous glare he could muster while breathing deeply to calm his racing heart. “Gods damn it, if you weren’t my sister, you’d be fucking dead, Neopolitan,” he ground out, unclenching his fist. “You’ve got a sick, twisted sense of humor.”

She smiled up at him. _And whose fault is that?_

_‘I thought you looked rather good with white hair,’_ Ozpin pitched in. 

“Can it, freeloader,” Roman spat. “Now, let’s try this again. Alright, Neo?” He pulled on his hair, which had thankfully returned to its normal burnished orange once Neo had let go of his hand. “Anything but white,” he said, enunciating each syllable to make himself utterly clear. 

Neo nodded solemnly, holding out her hand once more. Roman took it, and again her shimmering illusion matrix raced up his arm and across his body, settling quickly into place. She conjured a new mirror into being, and Roman stared at his reflection, dead-eyed. “I did say anything but white,” he droned, eyes fixed on the pair of fluffy, black cat ears poking up from beneath the brim of his hat. 

_‘Oh. This is even better.’_

Neo grinned, raising her scroll and snapping a photo. Roman hadn’t a shred of doubt that it was going to be his new contact photo for the foreseeable future. The only upside of that was that it would replace the photo of him with pink hair and a matching dress. Neo could never seem to resist playing dress-up before getting down to work. 

He heaved a beleaguered sigh. “If we ever go to Menagerie, this will be the perfect disguise. But until then, _can we lose the fluffy ears, please?_ ”

Neo obligingly waved a hand, and they were gone. The remainder of the disguise—a long, black coat, charcoal slacks, brick red vest, black fedora, black hair and blue eyes—would suit his purposes just fine. Neo cycled through a few different palettes for herself, until she settled on a form-fitting, burgundy sweater dress, black thigh-high boots, auburn hair and hazel eyes. 

_‘Remarkable,’_ said Ozpin.

For once, Roman agreed with him. Despite her aggravating taste in practical jokes, Roman couldn’t help but be proud of his little sister. From the blackest ash and most intense of pressures bearing down on her, she’d emerged a diamond—brilliant, sharp and unbreakable. And more precious to him than anything else in the world. No matter how much he wanted to wring her neck sometimes. 

“Alright,” said Roman, mounting up and helping Neo up into the saddle behind him. “Next stop Prism, and from there, Haven.” 

~ * ~

Prism City was ringed by mountains to the north and west, and the city itself sprawled down the steep slopes to the waters of the Dragon’s Back Strait between Vale and Mistral to the east. The city owed much of its relative safety and prosperity to these natural defenses. The only overland approach, other than the railway tunnel through the mountains, was up through the southern valley. Of course, with such isolated geography and so much to lose, the people of Prism had also developed a healthy sense of paranoia over the years. Despite being an important sky and sea port between Remnant’s two largest continents, Prism remained leery of outsiders. Hence, the well-staffed security checkpoint at the city gates. 

Six civil guardsmen, each armed with a taser, baton and automatic rifle, were questioning travelers entering the city and checking documents. And they would only be more suspicious of strangers after the attack on Vale. 

_‘One might call it karma.’_

Roman bit his tongue to keep from snapping something back at Oz. He couldn’t afford to draw any unwanted attention to himself. He rode up to the guardsmen at a leisurely, non-threatening pace. “Morning, gentlemen.”

“Halt right there,” said one of the guardsmen, striding forward to meet him. The others watched him keenly, weapons at the ready. “What’s the purpose of your visit to Prism City?”

“Just passing through,” said Roman genially. 

“Mistral your final destination, then?”

“That’s right.” 

“If you mean to go by air, you should know our sky docks are currently closed, undergoing some minor structural repairs. There was a rockslide up in the mountains yesterday that destabilized some support beams. The repairs should be completed in a day or two.”

“A rockslide? That’s unfortunate,” muttered Roman. He should have anticipated this, but he supposed there was nothing he could have done about it. They could cross by ship instead, but the strait was very deep, and all sorts of big nasties dwelled in those waters. Airship was safer, and still faster if the repairs to the sky docks only took a couple of days, as the man had said. They could kill some time in Prism. Roman hadn’t seen a city since Vale. He could think of plenty to do.

One of the other guardsmen spoke up, then. “A nevermore flew right into the mountain chasing our train through the tunnel. Stupid beast.”

“Oh my,” said Roman. “I hope no one was hurt.”

“Nah,” said the second guardsman. “One of our boys had a slight concussion, doesn’t remember any of it. But no casualties, thank the gods. We were lucky, I s’pose.”

“Well, that Huntsman wasn’t so lucky,” a third guardsman added. 

“Oh, right,” said the second. “Fell off the cliff, didn’t he? Poor bastard. That’s gotta be a bad way to go. Still, y’know. He was a Huntsman. You don’t get into that line of work and expect to die of old age.”

The first guardsman cleared his throat pointedly, silencing the chit chat between his colleagues. “We apologize for any inconvenience to your travel plans,” he told Roman.

“That’s alright,” said Roman. “It wasn’t your fault, after all.”

“Traveling alone?” asked the guardsman. Roman resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. He knew Neo had vanished some time ago. 

_‘What is she doing?’_ asked Ozpin nervously.

‘ _Just making sure things go smoothly,’_ Roman thought back. Aloud, he said, “Just my own thoughts for company, sir.” 

“Have you got any weapons on you?” asked the guardsman. “If so, I’ll need to verify the registration.”

“No weapons, just a simple cane,” said Roman, gesturing to his cane strapped to Crow’s side. Neo’s umbrella was gone. “I’ve got bad legs. Old childhood injury. I’m considering metal prosthetics, but they seem a bit clunky.”

The guardsman gave Roman’s cane only a cursory glance, but he favored Roman with an odd look. “So you’re traveling alone and unarmed? I don’t need to tell you how dangerous that is. Of course, there’s no law against being stupid,” he muttered under his breath. 

“Oh no, I was traveling with a Huntsman until a few miles back,” Roman replied, keeping the easy smile plastered to his face. “But you know the type. Flighty.” 

The guardsman nodded, moving to the next item on his checklist. “I’m going to need to search your bag for contraband items.”

“Go ahead.”

The guardsman opened up the saddlebag and rummaged around for a few seconds before pulling out the case of dust crystals and Neo’s little bags of dust powder. He carefully opened each bag and then unlatched the case, eyes roving over the red crystals packed in neat rows inside. 

“Oh, dust probably counts as a weapon, doesn’t it?” Roman asked, feigning ignorance. It had many other purposes after all, although Roman couldn’t claim to be familiar with most of them. 

“Not on its own, no,” said the guardsman, closing the case. “But the black market dust trade has become a problem for us here in Prism.” That, Roman already knew. He’d run a lot of his own smuggling networks through Prism. It was a very convenient port town. “You got proof of payment from a certified dust dealer?”

_‘Well, what do you know. He wants to see the receipt.’_

Roman’s grip tightened around the reins as he imagined squeezing the smugness right out of Ozpin’s voice. “As a matter of fact, I do,” he said, pulling the receipt from the dust shop out of his pocket and handing it over to the guardsman. 

The guardsman held the paper up to the sun to check the watermark, then handed the slip back to Roman and returned the dust to the saddlebag. “Alright, I just need to see some identification and then you can be on your way.”

“Sure,” said Roman, fishing out the illusory ID card Neo had slipped into his coat pocket. The guardsman accepted it and pulled his card reader off his utility belt. 

_‘I thought Neo’s illusions couldn’t fool scanners,’_ said Ozpin tensely.

_‘Not exactly.’_

If Roman squinted, he could just make out a slight, warping distortion of the light behind the guardsman. Neo was poised just behind his right shoulder, the tip of her sword no doubt a hair’s breadth from the back of his rib cage, through which it could easily slip to pierce his heart. But her primary target was the scanner in the guardsman’s hand.  When he ran Roman’s ID through the reader, the screen on the handheld console flickered once, and then displayed exactly what the guardsman was expecting to see—verification that the man in front of him was just who he said he was. 

The guardsman nodded and handed Roman’s ID back. Then he stepped aside, gesturing for Roman to pass. “Welcome to Prism City, Mr. Black.”

Roman tipped his hat to the man and rode on past. Ozpin let out a sigh of relief, or the next closest thing, considering Roman had the only pair of lungs between them. _‘Being a criminal is exhausting.’_

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Roman, dangling the guardsman’s expensive watch from his fingers. Ozpin had been too preoccupied by the security checks to notice the deft movement of Roman’s fingers as he’d accepted his ID back from the guardsman. “It has its perks.”

~ * ~

They were still arguing about the watch when Neo rejoined them a ways down the main street, appearing in the saddle behind Roman as they passed between two overloaded supply wagons. She could only maintain her illusion on Roman for so long without physical contact, so she made sure to hold onto him even though they were only riding at a leisurely clop down the street.

“So when _you_ decide to rob the civil guard, it’s for ‘the greater good’, but when _I_ do it, it’s ‘immoral’?” Roman grumbled, studying the maker’s mark on the watch’s casing to estimate its value. It would fetch a good few hundred Lien with the right buyer. The civil guard were certainly paid a handsome sum for their top-notch services. 

_‘Yes!’_ said Ozpin, exasperated. But even he wasn’t noble or naive enough to demand that Roman return the watch. The consequences, after all, would fall back on them both. 

“We can discuss this more on the nice, long flight to Haven,” said Roman, pocketing the watch. “But first we’ve got to find ourselves some suitable accommodations.” He gazed up through the sunbathed streets snaking their way up the mountainside. When topography permitted, the upper class tended to take their designation literally. The nicer establishments would be higher up the mountain. 

Crow reared back in a sudden fright, and Roman yanked the reins to the side to keep the beast from throwing him and Neo off. Someone had run out into the street in front of them, almost right under the horse’s hooves. 

“Please, mister, you’ve got to help!”

Roman looked down at the kid in front of him. He wore a cap, vest and wool trousers, but they were tattered and dirty. Beneath the brim of his hat, his eyes were hollowed, hungry. He couldn’t have been more than thirteen. 

“It’s my friend, he’s—he’s hurt real bad,” the kid continued, panting for breath. “Please, come help!”

Roman’s surprise dissipated quickly, replaced by an expression that was distinctly unimpressed. He didn’t need to look behind him to know that Neo was rolling her eyes. “Do we look like easy marks to you, kid?”

“W-what?” the boy sniffed, throwing in a lower lip tremble for good measure.

_‘Why do you always assume the worst of people? A child might really need help.’_

“I know how this goes,” Roman drawled. “If I play the good samaritan—which, let me tell you, is already where this little plan of yours falls apart—but say I let you take us to your ‘friend’. Then you lead us into that nice, secluded alley up ahead, where a few more of your ‘friends’ try to jump us and take us for all we’ve got. Which would be your second mistake, by the way.”

The boy’s expression soured as he finally dropped the act. He crossed his arms and frowned up at Roman. “How did you know?”

“It’s the oldest trick in the book. You can’t play a player, kid. Better luck next time.” Roman urged the horse back into motion, skirting around the boy without a second glance. 

“Wait.” Crow halted in his tracks. The boy was holding onto one of the saddle straps. 

“What?” said Roman, his voice edged with a warning. He had a low tolerance for helplessness. 

“What would you do? If you were me?” 

If a kid wanted to survive in the streets, he had to develop a tough exterior, or he’d get eaten alive. There were plenty of monsters in the cities, and they weren’t as easy to spot as the Grimm. This kid hadn’t even recognized that he’d stopped one in the middle of the street. The only difference between the predators and the prey was the lengths they were willing to go to to survive. But when Roman gave the boy another look, it was obvious that the kid’s armor was cracking. His knuckles had gone white as he clutched the saddle strap. His teeth were bared in an expression that didn’t project intimidation so much as desperation. His eyes weren’t just hungry—they were starving. 

“Wrong question,” said Roman. “It doesn’t matter what I’d do. It’s simple: If you do something no one’s ever done before, then no one’s gonna see it coming.” 

The kid blinked once, and let go. Roman gathered the reins and turned back to the road ahead.

_‘You’re an inspiration to young criminals everywhere.’_

A split-second passed between the distinctive _hiss_ of a blade being drawn, and the _click_ of Roman flipping up the crosshairs on his cane, already in hand with the muzzle trained on the boy behind him. The boy had pulled a knife, and it was poised to slice the tendons of the horse’s hind legs. But the kid was frozen in Roman’s sights, his eyes wide as he stared right into the crosshairs and down the barrel at Roman. 

“That wasn’t it,” said Roman. Still, it was just possible the boy had what it took, after all…

Slowly, the boy lowered the knife. 

Roman turned once more to leave, but before he urged Crow onward, he slipped the guardsman’s watch from his pocket and tossed it back over his shoulder. The kid caught it. “Don’t take less than three-hundred for it,” said Roman. “And if you’re smart, you won’t mention it to your ‘friends’.” 

Neo, who had observed the whole exchange dispassionately, smiled and waved goodbye as they left the boy behind. If Roman hadn’t been feeling charitable, she would just as easily have removed the boy’s hand before he’d put so much as a scratch on the horse. 

_‘Why did you give the watch to that boy?’_ asked Ozpin curiously.

“So you’ll stop bitching at me about the damn thing,” Roman grumbled. “I don’t care how valuable it is, it’s not worth another of your long-winded lectures.”

‘ _I see.’_

Roman got the distinct impression that if Ozpin had a mouth, he’d be smiling. The bastard. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roman: *steals every shiny thing he sees*
> 
> Ozpin: Reincarnating as a literal child would have been better than this.
> 
> Oscar, on a farm somewhere: *sneezes*


	21. Roman Torchwick's Day Off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, this chapter turned out a lot longer than I was expecting...

Roman checked them into a suite at one of the swankier hotels up by the sky docks, a ridiculously ostentatious establishment called the Gilded Aerie. It was a little much, even by Roman’s standards, but after camping on the ground for weeks on end, or staying a night in ramshackle village inns when they were lucky, he and Neo needed a dose of conspicuous luxury. Living like vagrants had been getting a little too close for comfort to their days of living on the streets, something Roman had long ago promised Neo they had left behind for good. 

_‘Even so, is all this really necessary? I think that fountain in the lobby was filled with champagne.’_

Roman chuckled. He planned to pay a visit to said champagne fountain later in the evening. With Qrow out of the way, he didn’t have to be quite so careful of forgetting himself for awhile. “I’m richer than the gods, Ozpin. Just relax and enjoy it.”

_‘Pardon me if I’m not as comfortable benefitting from ill-gotten gains as you are.’_

“Just wait ’til you lie down on two-thousand thread count Vacuese silk sheets. _Then_ you can tell me how uncomfortable you are.”

Back outside, Roman took Crow’s reins from Neo and walked the horse around the back of the building to the stables. Not many of the hotel’s clientele arrived on horseback, so the stables were relatively small, with only one attendant—and a boy, at that. Freckled, brown-skinned and hazel-eyed, he sat carving the caked dirt out of a palomino’s hooves. When he saw Roman and Neo in the doorway, he gently lowered the horse’s leg and stood to greet them. He was only a smidge taller than Neo, and his messily tousled hair made up a significant portion of the difference.

“Oh, um. Hello sir, madam. Welcome to the Gilded Aerie,” he said awkwardly. Clearly the hotel staff had impressed upon him the importance of proper etiquette, but the practice remained foreign to him. “We have a deluxe package available that includes food and board plus grooming, grazing, exercise twice a day, and re-shoeing if necessary. And of course companionship...”

Roman raised an eyebrow. “Companionship?”

“O-or there’s the standard package, which is just food and board. But really, horses need a lot of exercise, so I’d highly recommend the deluxe package...”

“Somehow, I get the feeling all the horses get the deluxe treatment regardless of how much the guests pay.” The kid was a soft touch. He might as well paint a target on his forehead.

_‘Oh, go easy on the boy. He’s just trying to do his job well.’_

The kid’s eyes widened. “N-no, of course not! That would be against policy...” When he saw that he wasn’t fooling Roman in the slightest, he lowered his voice and pleaded, “Please don’t tell my manager. This was only a temporary job so I could make a little extra money. I’m going back home in a week anyway, because my mom thinks Vale is too dangerous now. Please, I really don’t want to cause any trouble.” 

This kid was just too much. “If you’re leaving the job anyway, then it’s the perfect time to cause trouble.”

The flustered stableboy looked about ready to have a breakdown of some kind, so Roman eased off him a little. “Do I look like the kind of guy who’d go nark to your manager? Here.” He thrust Crow’s reins into the boy’s hands.

“O-oh.” He craned his neck as the dark horse plodded forward to loom over him, but he wasn’t intimidated by the beast in the slightest, reaching up to stroke Crow’s glossy black flank. It was Roman who made the kid nervous. “You sure are a beauty,” he murmured to the horse. To Roman, he said, “So will that be the deluxe or standard package...?” Another look from Roman, and he dipped his head and sighed. “Right. You can just pay me the standard rate. It’s a hundred Lien.”

“Care to strike a deal?”

The boy looked up, eyes full of dread. “A deal?”

“Where’s home, kid?”

The boy looked like he really didn’t want to tell Roman where he lived, but Roman only had to wait a couple of beats before the kid caved. “I live on my family’s farm in Mistral.”

“Yeah, you looked the type,” said Roman. “You see, I’m heading to the city proper, and it’s no place to keep a horse. So how about you take him off my hands, give him a nice life on that farm of yours? I’m sure he’d appreciate the _companionship_.”

“Wow, that’s very generous of you—” Roman cleared his throat pointedly. “...Oh.” The boy began to wring Crow’s reins in his hands, the leather creaking in his uneasy grip. “Well, I don’t actually have much money... Most of what I’ve made I’ve sent home.”

Roman shrugged. “Make me an offer.”

The boy looked up at Crow fondly. “T-two-hundred Lien?” he mumbled. When Roman said nothing, he squeaked, “Two-fifty? Really, that’s the most I can afford.”

Roman smiled. “You’ve got yourself a deal.” The kid would be getting a great horse for a steal, but Roman would still turn a nice profit on the exchange.

_‘But you paid five-hundred for the first horse. Not that I condone you ‘negotiating’ this poor child out of any more of his hard-earned money.’_

_‘That’s right, I almost forgot. I guess I’m just feeling nice today. Must be your good influence.’_

He waited for the kid to fetch the money from a lockbox he kept hidden in one of the haystacks. Not the best hiding place, from a professional perspective, but there wasn’t much to steal—not after he gave Roman most of it, anyway. 

“His name’s Crow. Spelled with a C,” Roman told the kid as he accepted the stack of Lien.

“How else would you spell it?” muttered the boy under his breath. 

Roman stepped forward and raised a hand to cup Crow’s cheek just as Ozpin had Qrow’s. “Goodbye, old friend,” he uttered melodramatically. “You’ll always be my favorite Crow, any which way you spell it.”

_‘You probably think you’re being funny.’_

Well, Neo was laughing—her own silent equivalent of it, hand to her lips and shoulders shaking. Roman didn’t miss the way the stableboy’s eyes kept drifting to her. He even cracked a small smile for the first time, bemused by the whole display. “Don’t worry, he’s in good hands.” He started wringing Crow’s reins again nervously, glancing once more at Neo. “Do you like horses, too?” he asked her. “I could introduce you to the others.”

She blinked at him mutely, head cocked in curious amusement. Unnerved by her silent stare, he dropped his gaze to his shoes. 

He startled when Roman clapped a hand down on his shoulder. “She’s too old for you, kid,” he said. The boy gave him a frightened nod of understanding, so Roman stepped back. “But look on the bright side. If you ever get bored of simple country living, you’ve just secured yourself a means of escape!” He gestured to Crow with a flourish. 

“I'm very happy on the farm, actually,” the boy mumbled.

“Then why do you want a horse of your own?” said Roman. 

“I…” The kid frowned, flustered all over again.

Roman smiled and held out his hand. “It's been a pleasure doing business with you...?”

“Oh uh, Oscar,” said the boy, shaking Roman’s hand. “Oscar Pine.”

Roman tipped his hat. “Well, see ya ‘round, Oscar.” He turned to leave.

“I— I never got your name.”

Roman glanced back over his shoulder at the hapless farm boy from Mistral who, odds were, had probably never heard the name... “Roman Torchwick.”

Oscar simply gave a small smile and wave. “Well, thanks again, Mr. Torchwick. I’ll take good care of Crow, don’t you worry.”

“I know you will,” Roman called back over his shoulder as he left the stables. Neo followed him out without giving the boy a second glance. There were times when she surprised even Roman with how brutal she could be. But it was always a pleasant surprise.

~ * ~

They took one of the hotel’s guest cars out for a spin around town to find a nice place for lunch where they could spend dear little Oscar’s money. The car was a sleek, black luxury model that was an absolute pleasure to drive, especially after so much time spent on horseback. Roman’s ass hadn’t been so sore since...what was his name? Constantine something? Roman didn’t usually make a point of remembering inconsequential one-night stands.

_‘I don’t much care to remember, either.’_

_‘Hey, you want me to keep my memories to myself, just show me how you do it.’_

But as he suspected, Ozpin remained silent. Of course he wouldn’t want Roman to have that kind of an advantage. Gods forbid they should ever meet each other on equal footing. No, Ozpin had made himself at home holding complete power over Roman, leaving Roman with the prickling instinct that he should constantly be looking over his shoulder. But even that would do no good. The enemy was within—he’d have no warning of what Ozpin was going to do until he did it. 

_‘I’m not at home here.’_

_‘Would you cut that out? If I have something to say to you, I’ll say it.’_

_‘I just think it’s important you realize that we’re on more equal footing than you think. I am not at home here, surrounded by malice and ill intent. You’re my enemy as much as I am yours, and we are each only trying to defend ourselves against the other, because we cannot attack each other outright. But that kind of tension creates an untenable living situation for us both.'_

_'Tell me something I don't know.'_

_'I'm willing to give you free rein.'_

Roman swerved the car just a little, but enough to earn a smack on the arm from Neo from where she sat in the passenger's seat. She’d gotten used to him being more easily distractible since he’d started hearing the voice of a certain late professor in his head, but it was a different story behind the wheel of a car. With effort, Roman refocused his attention on the road.

_‘Don’t fuck with me like that, or I’ll kill us both.’_

_‘I wasn’t— I was being serious. What I meant was, we have some downtime here, and it doesn’t much matter to me how we spend it. So you and Ms. Neo can do whatever you’d like. Within reason,’_ Ozpin was quick to qualify. 

Roman scoffed. _‘You figure you oughta let the dog off the chain once in awhile or it’ll bite, is that it?’_

_‘Something like that.’_

Roman thought through what Ozpin was offering. There was no quid pro quo, no catch that he could see. He knew Ozpin felt genuine guilt over his means of reincarnation. In fact, Ozpin felt himself to be more a thief than Roman was. Ozpin could conceal his thoughts from Roman, but he couldn’t do the same for his feelings. Roman felt what Ozpin felt to a certain degree, and it was easy to recognize these feelings of guilt as foreign, since Roman had always thought of guilt as a waste of time. No, there was no catch. Ozpin was just trying to make amends in some small way—a day of freedom in exchange for a lifetime of subordination. It was almost insulting, actually. But, like always, Roman would take whatever he could get.

_‘Alright. I could use a day off from your prodding and nagging, and your tireless agenda. Think you could manage some peace and quiet?’_

When Ozpin said nothing, Roman sighed and relaxed back into the seat. He watched the big mountaintop mansions pass by as he made his way to the neighborhood’s commercial street. What should he do with this little holiday? He wouldn’t kid himself—he knew Ozpin would step in if he had strong objections to Roman’s choice of activity, but there had to be some common ground. He didn’t need to break the law to have a good time. ...Gods, he sounded just like his old parole officer. 

Well, there was one thing Roman could think of to start with. Neo’s illusions were flawless, but beneath the veneer, their clothes were tattered and dirty from their travels. They didn’t _look_ out of place in this filthy rich neighborhood, but Roman sure as hell _felt_ that way. And if he couldn’t put himself in order on the inside, he could at least do something about his outward appearance. 

He turned to Neo with a smile. “What do you say after lunch, we do a little shopping?”

Neo grinned and nodded eagerly. It was a toss-up as to which one of them enjoyed getting new clothes more. It was something of a tradition that they would go together. 

_‘As long as ‘shopping’ isn’t a euphemism for stealing...’_

“Shhhhhh,” said Roman. “It’s not a euphemism, now would you kindly shut the fuck up?”

Ozpin was silent again, but quiet huffs of breath from the passenger’s side meant Neo was snickering to herself. Well, at least one of them was already enjoying themselves.

~ * ~

They had some of the best seafood Roman had ever tasted at a fancy restaurant on the high street, and afterward, they paid a visit to the city’s master tailor. Roman knew the lady by reputation—she was exclusive, discreet and supposedly better than any tailor in Vale. The moment he walked into her shop—all warm, dark wood and soft, emerald carpeting—he felt right at home. Which was odd, considering he’d never been there before. 

_‘But I have.’_

Roman sighed. _‘There’s no avoiding you, is there?’_

_‘We both appreciate a bespoke suit, it seems. And she really is better than any tailor in Vale.’_

_‘Well, that’s two things we have in common, then.’_

_‘Two? What was the first?’_

_‘Bad taste in women.’_

Ozpin lapsed into silence again, which suited Roman just fine. A tall, handsome, dark-haired woman in an impeccable blue suit and blue satin gloves came out from the backroom to inspect her two new visitors. “Ms. Lapis?” Roman inquired.

“Yes,” she replied, her voice tinged with a foreign accent Roman couldn’t quite place. Menagerie? She didn’t look like a Faunus, though. “Do you have an appointment, Mister...?”

“Black,” said Roman. “Randall Black. And this is my sister, Nina. We just arrived in town, but we were hoping you’d be able to make a few garments for us. We’ve heard marvelous things about your work. Some say you’re the best in the kingdom.”

She arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Just the one kingdom?”

Roman grinned. “That remains to be seen.”

She glanced at a leather-bound appointment book lying open on the desk in front of her. Everything on today’s page had been crossed out. She hurriedly flipped the book shut. “I wouldn’t normally accept walk-ins, but I happen to have an opening today,” she said. “Many of my international clients cancelled their appointments after the recent unpleasantness in Vale.”

Roman had suspected as much. To his knowledge, Atlas was the only kingdom that had closed its borders, but the others would still be wary of Vale’s dangerous instability for quite some time. “Then you can see to us both?”

Lapis pursed her lips at his presumption, but nodded. “This way, please,” she said, leading them to the fitting room at the back of the shop. Neo tugged off her boots and hopped up onto the pedestal in front of the mirrors without looking either to Roman or Lapis first. 

"Sure, you go first," Roman muttered, taking a seat on the bench behind her. 

Neo grinned broadly and held out her arms for Lapis to take her measurements. She always harbored some small hope that she might have grown a fraction of an inch since her last fitting. 

Lapis pulled off her satin gloves and tucked them into her jacket pocket. Then she picked up a measuring tape and notepad off a small desk in the corner, and got to work with an air of professionalism that veiled whatever her true feelings were regarding her two new clients. "What are you looking for in terms of cut, style, color and fabric?" she asked as she jotted down measurements.

Roman played interpreter, using what he already knew about Neo's fashion sense to translate her gestural responses into verbal form so Lapis would understand. In response to more complicated questions, Neo would scribble the answers in her own notepad and show it to Lapis. Lapis, for her part, went right along with their system, continuing her work with the same professionalism as before, as though nothing were odd about a girl who simply didn’t speak. 

Soon it was Roman’s turn. He set his cane aside, shucked off his gloves and coat, and stepped up onto the pedestal as Neo stepped off, their hands brushing briefly so Neo could renew her focus on the illusion around him. He had to fight an irrational feeling of vulnerability, stripped of his cane, his coat and his thick leather gloves. His Aura could protect him now. He didn’t need to be quite so careful about letting down his guard.

In fact, he could enjoy himself. Lapis was a nice-looking gal. She was no Cinder, but, Roman reminded himself, that was a good thing. As she knelt down in front of him to take the measure of his inseam, he bit his tongue to keep from saying something crude. He knew better than to harass a tailor—they had far too many needles and scissors to hand. But he could still appreciate the view. They talked instead about what he wanted her to make, and he watched her work with deft efficiency.

“Everyone says redheads shouldn’t wear red, but I’ve always been fond of the color. What’s your professional opinion?” he asked.

“They should not. It clashes,” she said brusquely. “For them, I would recommend an accent color in a different jewel tone. Emerald—”

“I hate that color,” Roman interjected.

Lapis frowned at his strong reaction. “Then it’s a good thing you’re not a redhead.”

“Right...”

Roman fell back to quietly watching her work. As he did so, he noticed that her fingertips were heavily scarred up to the first knuckle—each and every one.

_‘She was—_ is _—a Faunus,’_ said Ozpin. _‘She was born with claws that were actually helpful to her in her trade. But she tailored herself to fit the society she lived in.’_

_‘Huh. Enterprising woman.’_

_‘You don’t find it saddening, that she felt she couldn’t be herself, so she tried to become someone else?’_

_‘We all tailor ourselves to fit the roles we end up in, Oz,’_ Roman thought. _‘Some of us are just better at it than others.’_

“How would you feel about coattails?”

“Coattails?” said Roman, returning his attention to Ms. Lapis.

“I think they would suit you,” she said as she jotted down her final measurements. 

He looked thoughtfully into the mirror, although thanks to Neo, he hardly recognized himself. “They’re a little old-fashioned, aren’t they?”

“Everything old is new again,” she said. 

Roman considered it further. He had always rather liked the look of them in old movies. “Why not?” he said. “I’ll try anything once.”

Lapis nodded curtly and flipped her notebook shut, not so much as acknowledging Roman’s suggestive tone. “I think I have all I need. Allow me a minute to sketch the designs for you.”

Lapis crossed to the desk in the corner, setting down her notepad and measuring tape, and picking up a leather-bound sketchbook. She perched, birdlike, on the edge of the desk with the sketchbook on her knee, and soon, her pencil was flying across the page with precise and certain strokes. The work absorbed her complete attention.

All but forgotten, Roman stepped down off the pedestal. Neo held his coat open for him, and Roman shrugged it on. She reached up and patted him on the cheek, her way of showing mock sympathy for his bruised ego. 

“I’m just not quite myself these days,” he muttered, referring to Neo’s illusion, but then realizing the words were true in more ways than one. “I’m not losing my edge, am I?”

Neo shook her head adamantly. She gestured to Lapis, and then swirled her finger through the air beside her head. _She’s crazy._

Roman chuckled. “Maybe you’re right.”

They waited in silence for Lapis to finish sketching. She didn’t take long. “What do you think?” she asked, hopping down from the desk and holding her sketchbook open for them to see.   

  


On one page was Neo’s design, and on the opposite, Roman’s. For Neo, she had sketched a cream-colored capelet coat with a delicate gold chain across the lapels, and a striking three-color lining on the back panel in Neo’s signature pink, brown and cream, separated in three scalloped tiers that echoed the coat’s scalloped hem. Since Neo preferred riding trousers, Lapis had sketched a pair in a deeper brown, with pink patches on the inside of the knees. Roman had mentioned they also needed new shoes, and Lapis had assured him she knew a fine cobbler who could produce whatever she designed. So she had sketched a new pair of tall, cream-colored boots for Neo with dark brown buttons and pink stitching up the back. 

For Roman, she had envisioned a cream-colored tailcoat with his signature red lining, a charcoal grey vest, black trousers with red pinstripes, a pair of black oxfords with red stitching, a new black kerchief with red stitching around the border, and black leather gloves with red buckles going up to his elbows. The two outfits still coordinated with one another in the way Roman and Neo always had, but they were also distinct and divergent in their own ways. The fabrics Lapis had chosen would be hardy, durable, and yet easy to move in, especially in Neo’s case.

Roman and Neo exchanged a nod of agreement. All in all, in these clothes, they’d be ready to make a new start in a new place without leaving their old selves behind. _Everything old is new again._

“Perfect,” said Roman. 

Lapis looked as though she’d expected nothing less. She snapped her sketchbook closed. “Since you approve of the designs, I will get to work on them right away. You may return tomorrow morning for your fittings. Let’s say...nine-thirty?”

“Alright.”

Roman had hardly made his answer before she was ushering them both out of her shop. Once they were back out on the street, she shut the door behind them and flipped the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed.’

As soon as the door latched shut, Neo slumped against the side of the building, panting lightly as though she were suddenly out of breath. Except it wasn’t sudden at all. She hadn’t let Lapis see any sign of her exhaustion, but Roman knew her too well not to notice when her illusions began to drain her energy. 

He took her hand to ease the strain on her Semblance somewhat. “Ready to head back?”

She nodded, so he scooped her up in his arms. If he were anyone else, he’d have been dead before he could draw his next breath. But Neo allowed him to pick her up without resistance. “You’ve been working hard. Time to take a breather.”

He carried her back to the car, only getting the occasional odd look from passers by. At a glance, Neo probably looked young enough to be his daughter. He opened the car door and sat her down in the backseat where she could lie down if she wanted to. Then he got behind the wheel and drove them back to the hotel. Once they were back in their suite, Neo faceplanted into one of the downy beds and let her illusions shimmer away. 

Roman pulled her boots off for her, although it was difficult not to pull Neo off the bed with them, given how light she was. Her coat was easier to remove, and he hung it up in the wardrobe alongside his own, along with his cane and her umbrella. “Room service and a movie?” he suggested.

Neo perked up a bit at that, so Roman took the liberty of ordering for them both, and picked out a campy horror movie on the large flatscreen that he knew Neo would like. It was either that or a romantic comedy, and there was only so far Roman was willing to go to please his sister. 

They sat together on one of the beds eating their ridiculously fancy room service and watching the cheesy, old horror movie, and it was almost like they were years younger, spending nights in cheap motels when they could scrounge together the cash, just to get off the streets for a little while. The bed, food and TV were nicer, but the routine was the same. But Roman found he didn’t mind being reminded of those nights like he did their nights on the street. On those nights, it had almost felt like they’d had a home again.

He realized his thoughts had taken a turn for the embarrassingly sentimental a little too late. _‘Don’t you dare say a fucking word.’_

Ozpin didn’t. 

At some point during the second half of the movie, Neo fell asleep with her head resting on Roman’s shoulder. He only noticed when he felt a dampness start to seep through his shirt, and realized she was drooling. 

“Ugh,” he muttered. “Real nice, Neo. You’re lucky you’re cute.”

He turned off the TV and carefully extricated himself, sliding a pillow under her head instead. If she weren’t dead tired, he probably would have woken her despite his best efforts. But she hardly stirred, just nuzzling deeper into the pillow. 

Roman took her notepad from her coat pocket and wrote: _Went for a drive. Back later._ He tore out the note and left it on the pillow beside her. Then he slipped into his coat, snatched up his cane, and left the room.

_‘Are you sure it’s wise to go out undisguised?’_

Roman sighed. Ozpin had been so quiet, Roman had almost managed to forget he was there. Which was rather the point. _‘It’s dark out, the car’s got tinted windows, and this isn’t Vale. The chances of anyone recognizing me are slim, and if it does happen, I can just...poof.’_ He twinkled his fingers in the air. _‘Disappear.’_

_‘I suppose that’s true...’_

_‘Then cool it. It’s still my day off, and I intend to make the most of it.’_

Roman took the freight elevator down to the ground floor, and went out the hotel’s back entrance. No one was wandering the corridors this late. He left without meeting another soul. He had never returned the guest car to the pool. Instead, he’d left it parked a few blocks away, and kept the keys in his pocket. He got into the car and began to navigate the dark, winding streets down the mountain. 

Ozpin’s curiosity and wariness prickled at the back of his mind, but he did his best to tune it out. Literally. He turned on the radio and found a halfway decent jazz station to take his mind off of Ozpin’s presence. He hated being alone with Ozpin. These were the times he felt most like an insect pinned in place under a magnifying glass. Luckily, what he was looking for wasn’t hard to find. 

The streets became narrower, and the lampposts stood sentinel fewer and further between deep patches of darkness. In their place, red light seeped out of windows as though hellfire burned within. A different sort of people did not so much walk these streets, as prowl them. Roman slowed the car to a crawl and let his eyes rove over what was on offer, waiting for something—well, some _one_ —to draw his gaze. 

_‘Please don’t tell me this is exactly what it looks like,’_ Ozpin said, finally.

“This is exactly what it looks like,” Roman responded, and kept driving.

_‘Torchwick.’_

There she was. Leaning up against a lamppost, looking as though she’d just stepped out to enjoy the cigarette she was raising to her painted lips. And most importantly, looking nothing in the slightest like Cinder fucking Fall. She was tall and lanky, her green eyes sparkled under dark make-up, she wore her ashen blonde hair short and her tight, black dress even shorter.

_‘Torchwick.’_

Roman pulled over the car and rolled down his window. “Need a light?” he asked, flicking open his lighter and holding it out to the woman.

She smiled and leaned in close to ignite her cigarette. “What a gentleman,” he said, and there was a rough edge to her otherwise breathy voice that Roman found very appealing. She blew a stream of smoke up into the light. “Not many gentlemen around here,” she continued, eyeing the expensive car he was driving. 

Roman cracked a wry smile. “Looks can be deceiving, darling.”

She leaned in even closer until Roman could feel her breath on his cheek. “Then how about you take me somewhere you can show me who you really are, _darling_?”

Roman reached over to open the passenger-side door.

_‘Roman!’_

He jerked his hand back. “What the _fuck_ do you _want_?” he shouted. He hadn’t anticipated such a visceral reaction to Ozpin using his first name for the first time.

The woman teetered hastily back on her stiletto heels, putting distance between herself and the car. Then she hurried away down the street and vanished around the corner. 

“Gods _damn_ it! Now the whole street’s gonna think I’m a fucking psycho.”

_‘They wouldn't be very far off...’_

Roman’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “ _Fuck_ you! What was so damn important that you had to ruin my entire evening?”

_‘You were going to pick up a prostitute.’_

“Yeah, well I don’t normally _have_ to pay to take someone to bed, but my options are pretty fucking limited thanks to you and your paranoia. You want to relieve some tension, this is the best way I know to do it. You made it pretty damn clear random hook-ups were off the table, so—"

_'And what would you call this?'_

"A transaction."

_'Roman—'_

Roman flinched again. "Stop that. It's weird."

_'This is worse. Prostitutes are the most notorious information brokers in any city. You must know that. I can guarantee you Salem has tapped their networks.'_

"I'm not one for pillow talk, Oz. What exactly do you think I'm gonna _say_ to the lady?"

_'I don't know what you'll do or say in...novel situations.'_

Roman could have laughed at how ridiculous this whole thing was if it wasn't so gods damn frustrating. "Do you know how long your pal Ironwood had me locked up?"

_'Not precisely...'_

"Neither do I! I lost track! That's how long it was. And do you know the first thing I was looking forward to doing when I got sprung?"

_'Reuniting with your sister?'_

"Well, obviously, but that's not what I—" Roman let loose a frustrated growl. " _Fuck_ , now you've got me thinking about Neo. Gods damn you, you ruin everything!"

“I heard you were givin’ one of my gals trouble.” A low voice drifted in through the open window, and a man dressed in black stepped out of the shadows and into the pool of light beneath the streetlamp. He rested a hand on his hip, parting his coat to reveal a flash of steel. “How about you pay for the trouble you’ve caused with that fancy set of wheels you got there, and I let you walk away?”

Roman rolled his eyes. Now he was being threatened—badly—by a common street thug. This was just great. “I was in the middle of a conversation,” he said. “It’s rude to interrupt.”

The man took a step forward, then another. “Do I look like I care about being polite, you crazy—“

Roman snatched his cane up off the passenger’s seat and had his sights trained on the other man in a heartbeat. “How’s this for crazy?”

The man stumbled back, fumbling frantically for his weapon. As Roman suspected, his clumsiness meant he was more accustomed to showing the piece than drawing it. Roman didn’t bother to stick around. The last thing he wanted to do tonight was dispose of a body. He slammed his foot on the gas pedal and sped off down the street, leaving the whole gods forsaken neighborhood behind. 

_‘Yet another reason to avoid such places and their denizens.’_

“Oh, bullshit!” Roman spat, glaring at the road. “Do you know what I think?”

_‘Yes.’_

Roman said it anyway, because the whole mind reading thing was just rude. “I think you’re still hung up on Qrow!”

Ozpin sighed. _‘Of course I am. But it— It will fade, in time.’_

“Yeah, well time is one thing I don’t have in abundance.” Roman reconsidered his options as he drove through Prism’s dark and silent streets. "What about Qrow? Just, hypothetically speaking."

_'Excuse me?'_ Ozpin's voice suddenly took on a much darker tone.

"Look, I have no interest in your sloppy seconds, but if he's the only item on the menu, I've still gotta eat."

_'Absolutely not. I will not discuss this with you. Qrow is not a bargaining chip.'_

Roman wasn't particularly inclined to press the issue further, but even if he were, Ozpin's tone made it clear that he wouldn’t get anywhere. The conversation was over. They were both fed up with each other. 

Roman drove back to the hotel. It was late enough that even the concierge had turned in for the night, and the lobby was empty. Roman swiped his key to get in and strode across the polished marble floor, heading straight for the elevators. A row of classical statues on either side of the entryway gazed down at him from up on their marble pedestals. He gripped his cane tighter, suppressing the urge to blow their heads off. It was like he’d never gotten out of that cell. Just because he couldn’t see the bars, didn’t mean they weren’t there. He just had a different jailor, now. 

He slowed his steps as he passed the tinkling champagne fountain in the center of the lobby. Well, a gilded cage was still better than a steel one. He took two crystal champagne flutes from the rim of the fountain and submerged them in the golden liquid. He brought the brimming glasses with him up to the suite. Slipping quietly inside, careful not to wake Neo, he shut himself in the bathroom. He set the glasses on the side of the large, porcelain bathtub and started the water running hot. Then he stepped up onto the toilet and disabled the smoke detector on the ceiling with practiced ease. As he waited for the tub to fill, he stripped out of his clothes and lit a cigar. He breathed deep, and exhaled smoke and stress. There was no use in snapping at each other and making each other miserable. Oz was right about one thing: they both needed to unwind. 

Roman dipped his hand into the bathtub to test the water. It was just the right side of scalding. Satisfied, he shut off the spout and stepped into the tub, easing back against the side. He set his cigar down on the side of the tub and reached for one of the champagne flutes, raising it to his lips and letting the bubbles dance across his tongue. The hotel really had spared no expense—this was the good stuff. Money couldn’t solve all his problems, he mused, but it certainly helped. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, trying to clear his mind. 

His scroll started to ring. 

Roman grit his teeth and cracked his eyes open to glare at the ceiling. His patience was being severely tested today. “I’m going to murder whoever that is,” he resolved, reaching over the side of the tub to rummage in his coat pockets until he found his scroll. It was a video call from one Qrow Branwen. 

Roman debated whether to take it, but he suspected Oz would have some choice words for him if he ignored the call. “Feathers,” he said by way of greeting, scroll in one hand, champagne flute in the other. 

_“I would burn this fucking thing if I didn’t look like I’d been mauled by a fucking beowolf,”_ Qrow growled, tugging on Roman’s kerchief around his throat. Ah yes, Roman had sent him some rather insulting texts that morning. It seemed like ages ago now. 

“Go ahead and burn it if you want, I’m having a new one made,” said Roman dismissively. “I just assumed a Huntsman like you could handle it, but I’m sorry if I was playing too rough for you.”

Qrow looked like he wanted to reach through the scroll and throttle Roman. Roman took another sip of champagne. 

_“Are you…naked?”_ Qrow asked, expression shifting from anger to something a little more self-conscious. 

Roman lounged back against the side of the tub. “As the day I was born.”

There was that blush again. It looked so out of place on such a worldweary face. _“I’ll call back later,”_ said Qrow.

Roman chuckled. “Shy, too? Some fearsome warrior you are.”

_“Fine,”_ Qrow growled. _“Let me talk to Oz.”_

“No can do,” said Roman. “Oz has given me the day off. That means no dealing with, well, you, among other things.”

_“What? That doesn’t make any sense. Oz wouldn’t just—“_

“Relax,” Roman sighed. “He’s still got me on a short leash.” Curiously, Qrow’s blush deepened. Perhaps he enjoyed playing teacher’s pet. “Whatever you have to tell him, you can tell me,” Roman continued. “He’ll get the message.”

Qrow seemed like he wanted to argue, but he clearly didn’t want to prolong the conversation. _“I found them,”_ he said, finally. _“The kids. They haven’t gotten far. They seem to be planning on…walking to Mistral.”_

Roman nearly spat out his next sip of champagne in a fit of laughter. “Well, see you in a month or two!”

Qrow grimaced. _“I’ll check in every week with an update on our progress.”_

Roman brought his scroll closer and squinted at the screen. “Are you sitting up in a tree?”

Qrow hung up. 

Roman took another puff of his cigar. “Boy, you sure know how to pick ‘em.” 

_‘Months…’_

Roman exhaled smoke through his teeth in a long hiss. “It’s your own fault,” he grumbled. “You should’ve taught your students some basic geography.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oscar, right after Roman left: Why do I feel like I just dodged a bullet there? 
> 
> ~
> 
> Qrow, up in the tree: So, what brings you here?
> 
> Random crow: ...
> 
>  
> 
> [A/N: I did my own version of a RWBY inter-seasons outfit change :) I'm not much of an artist, so I altered what was already there. Still, I like the way they came out. You can see a larger version here: https://elektricangel.tumblr.com/post/182105091962  
> Also, I have a totally tangential headcanon that all of Roman's past lovers (with the exception of Cinder) have the names of Roman emperors and empresses.]
> 
> [A/N 2: They get to Mistral in the next chapter, promise.]


End file.
